Midnight Medicine
by greencard
Summary: The danger has only just begun for House and Wilson . . .
1. Chapter 1

"Go home."

"No."

"Go _home."_

"No, not until the lab tests come in. It will be within the next few hours and then we'll have a clearer picture of what we're working with."

House groaned and dug around in his pocket for the narrow bottle. "Chase went home. Foreman went home. If I had any food in the fridge, I would be going home. Be normal, dammit."

"Not 'til the tests." Cameron stared up at him determinedly and, in a familiar stalemate, his mocking gaze was met with her usual damp-eyed sincerity._ Jesus, it's like working with Bambi._

"Ok, fine. Hang around in the lab, paint your toenails, order pizza. It's going to be negative. We'll brainstorm tomorrow." He walked off down the corridor, snatching the paper bag off his desk._ Food time at last._ It was mere seconds before Wilson met him in the corridor. House glared at him incredulously.

"What the hell is wrong with the staff here? It's past midnight! Go home! You're making me look bad."

"Paperwork. You might want to try it sometime before your inbox collapses under its own mass. Since when did you worry about looking good?"

"I don't. I just don't want you looking better."

"Going to eat with vegetative-state guy?"

"I thought the coma ward for today. Intimate. The repartee is so much fresher."

"You could go check on not-coma girl."

"Not-coma girl?" House quirked an eyebrow. "Did I mention I'm going to the coma ward?"

"Admitted three days ago. Doesn't have a feed in because her blood sugar is maintaining itself along with her levels of pretty much everything else, no abnormal brain function beyond what's expected of - well, a coma. They're keeping an eye on her vitals, but - that's pretty much it. She's basically just really asleep. I'm surprised Cuddy didn't mention it to you."

"Tried yelling in her ear?" He paused. "That kid? The red-head?" A pale girl on a gurney rolled past in House's mind.

"Ah, so you do know. Avoiding the tricky cases?"

"It probably wasn't mentioned to me because it is scientifically impossible to remain in what you are basically describing as suspended animation for three days. Cuddy and Co. have tested wrong."

"That's not what I heard."

"That's what medical science demands must be true, as you well know." He paused before the elevator and drummed his fingers on his cane. "I'll keep her on as a candidate."

"You could sit with her for dinner. Maybe the prospect of a date with you will snap her right out of it," Wilson called back as he strolled on towards Cuddy's office. It took a second for House to realise that this comment could swing as a compliment or something much more offensive.

_Housewife, bald guy or red-head?_ House twirled his cane thoughtfully as the elevator doors dinged open and he stepped out onto the lower floors. A perpetual twilight seemed to fill the three rooms neatly lined up before him; lights respectfully dimmed, televisions quietly murmuring, glass glinting in the shadowy half-tones. Bald guy, he decided. He always had the uncomfortable feeling that housewife would be disapproving, and red-head's room let in the traffic-whine through the narrow window. He resisted the urge to peek in at her and stayed on course, easing himself into the chair by the man's bedside and pulling a Reuben from the paper bag. "We're doing an all-nighter," he informed the still form as he rustled deeper for chips. "Make sure I don't fall asleep." He propped his legs up on the bed's edge and settled his eyes, unseeing, on the murmuring television screen. Two hours at least 'til the tests came back. The tests would almost certainly tell them nothing they didn't already know. Cameron would still be hovering around the lab anxiously, clinging for anything that might cancel out the inevitable delivery of bad news. He was sure they were negative; he could just drive home. But switching off from the puzzle until tomorrow morning seemed inelegant, a bit too nine-to-five for his occupation. He couldn't confess his own late night scheme though, for fear that Cameron would misconstrue it as a sign of him developing her own patented doe-eyed concern.

He absent-mindedly dusted some crumbs off bald guy's chest and suddenly sat up, fingers still fluttering above the blanket. Footsteps. Cuddy coming to chastise him for his meal time antics? He glanced down again at his silent comrade. _Don't grass me up, buddy._ He smirked into his sandwich._ At least she'd have to stop calling me anti-social._

Many footsteps. Sneaking, hesitant, non-doctorly steps, he decided. Cuddy's stride was distinctly more aggressive and recognisable to him, ever heralding the threat of clinic duty. The sound passed by the half-closed door, away from the elevator, and he heard a low voice. He sat up in interest and seized his cane, gently laying his sandwich down on the table. Turning right out of the elevator meant only one possible destination: red-head's room. Definitely not visiting hours. He hopped up and stealthily headed for the door.

"In here, come on!" It was a hushed male voice.

"Xander! Don't drop it! You do not want to make me go back and do that again. I will manage to make sure that you regret it more than I will." Female. Two of them.

"Yes, the anti-venom extraction was a little - erm, gruesome. Be careful with it."

House's frown deepened. Three voices. This one sounded older, British and somehow scholarly. And from the sounds of it, possibly insane.

"Let's just hurry up. This place gives me the wiggins." _The what?  
_

"Hospitals? You aren't immune to them by now"

"Shut up, both of you! We don't have much time."

House's curiosity went cold and unfurled claws into his chest as he heard the younger male voice whisper hurriedly,

"Ok, ok - who wants to actually - you know - do it? With the whole syringe-thing. 'Cos honestly - not me."

_Shit._


	2. Chapter 2

House only hesitated for a second before he strode into the corridor and threw open the door of the patient's room. The window threw a dramatic scythe of moonlight onto the floor around the bed, illuminating three figures as they simultaneously twisted around. Given the already somewhat surreal situation, House was only mildly surprised that it was not the teens but the older man, grey at the temples and lined around the eyes, who looked down at the floor and murmured, "Oh, bloody fantastic."

House leaned forward, both hands atop the cane and arched a baiting eyebrow at the guilty three.

"A little late for visitors, wouldn't you say?"

The dark-haired boy, no more than eighteen, blinked like a rabbit caught in the headlights. _Perhaps not a particularly bright rabbit_, House mused inwardly. The blonde - his mental gears slipped and reassessed - _Wow._ Jail bait. She pursed her mouth into a determined line and glowered a pouty glower at him that only made his assessment stick more strongly. _Who would have guessed rabbit kid had it in him?_ Red-head's vitals continued to bounce obediently across the screen by her head. Although he didn't realise it, his shoulders loosened slightly and whatever tautness had gripped him for the past few seconds unclenched and dissolved. _Patient is fine. Visitors however_, he thought grimly, _are totally busted_.

He took a step forward into the uncomfortable silence that shimmered in the air between them.

"A tad late even for the close family members, who as the rules state are the only people actually allowed to be here - and I'm guessing from the glaring genetic dissimularities that you two aren't daddy's little angels, right?"

Blondie pursed her lips harder and rabbit boy twitched, eyeing the elder man with something like horror at this statement. The older man merely rolled his eyes in a long-suffering, well-practised reflex. House felt an unexpected stab of empathy. As ever with his moments of fellow-feeling, it melted a second later when the man opened his mouth.

"I'm sorry - we are very close friends of Miss. Rosenberg's and we just thought . . it might be ok to - to pop in, for a moment." The elder man smiled lamely. House's gaze didn't falter. "I'm Mr. Giles, I'm Willow's teacher and these are two of her fellow pupils. We just wanted - a moment alone . . ?" His voice trailed off into desperate silence. House scrunched his face into an expression of faux-concentration.

"Hmm . . . let me think . . . _No_. No non-family, not after hours, and definitely not without express permission beforehand from hospital staff." Blondie looked spectacularly unrepentant. "I'm normally a fairly easy-going guy -" he heard Wilson's snigger erupt in his head, and added - "when it comes to regulations - but today, I just don't feel like granting favours to people who spend their evenings stealing around coma wards. Out. Now." He pointed to the door with authoritative relish and glared at each of them individually.

"Please - we'd just appreciate a minute with her, if we might? "

"No. Out." They didn't move. Mr. Giles glanced anxiously at the blonde girl, who looked, to House's extreme annoyance, more thoughtful than anything else. He swivelled on his heel. "Alright, time for the boys in blue." There was a panicked gasp from the man behind him.

"Really, there's no - "

"Tell them something about a syringe I overheard." He loaded the sentence heavily and, glancing back, was rewarded by the three faces all turning pale, and even as the cold part of his mind brightened in interest, the uneasy feeling in his stomach gained a weight and certainty. The idea began to take full impact that some sort of medical coup seemed to be about to take place. Misguided friends or insane strangers doling out late-night euthanasia was not definitely not the evening he had planned. He felt a restraining hand on his arm as the boy darted forward and spun him round, his eyes wide with fear.

"No, wait - "

"Save it." He shook his arm away but was halted by the imploring look he received. _This is definitely getting weird._ The boy let out a high-pitched laugh and rubbed his hands on his jeans.

"Seriously, just - just hear us out."

He schooled his features into an expression of boredom. "Sorry. Already had my bed-time story." Mr. Giles raised his hands in a poorly judged effort to placate him.

"We have - we have something we think can help Willow's condition. I assure you, our intentions are completely pure."

"Oh, well then. Perhaps rather than breaking into hospitals you might prefer to impart this information to an actual _doctor_? Say me, for example." Blondie huffed impatiently, and Mr. Giles' mouth twisted in distaste at the sheer volume of sarcasm House had injected into his little speech.

"You - you're a doctor?" This information only seemed to worry him more.

"Gee, skulking around hospitals at night? Yes, I am a doctor, and therefore _allowed _to do that. And you three - you three most definitely are not." Blondie might be a Cameron in the making of course, but somehow the mental leap was just too great to picture the boy in scrubs. "Not just that, I'm a very good doctor and the head of diagnostics at this hospital. So I suggest if you three have managed to Google your way to a cure in between math class and cheerleading practice, you might want to run it by me first." They all looked more angry than embarrassed, he noted. Fiestier than he would have thought. Mr. Giles reached for his glasses and frowned.

"I suppose - possibly we could come back at another time - "

"No!"

House almost jumped as Blondie snapped out the refusal.

"Hey, it speaks!" Another glare.

"There's no time. Doctor will just have to deal."

He tilted his head, considering her angry outburst when she reached out and grasped a faded backpack from the boy and unzipped it roughly. An empty syringe, and a glass vial of - _what the hell was that?!_ Viscous, green, straight from the Little Chemistry Set of Horrors. He strode forward to snatch it out of her hand.

"What on earth is that?" She pushed him away with a swiftness that surprised him and he grabbed the bed rail to steady himself. "There's no way that's going anywhere near this patient, or anyone who still has a pulse." She looked at him defiantly. He rolled his eyes. "This is medicine. This is _science_. You don't poke her with a needle of something some hippy in a homeopathic store sold you and have her spring back to life. Hand it over." Another hand on his arm, pulling him backwards -

"I promise you, you just have to trust us, its honestly safe - "

"Are you serious?" he snorted. "Based on what medical analysis are you three thinking of plugging her full of that?"

"Just - believe us. It's what she needs. This coma, it's not what you think. It's - it's beyond your realm of expertise," said Blondie perkily. He was too shocked at her breezy attitude to bristle at the blasphemous suggestion that his medical expertise could possess limits.

He sighed. "Ok, something different: lets embrace rationality for a moment. Don't go into shock." He pushed the restraining arm away and looked at her firmly. "Firstly, what do you think that is?"

Mr. Giles coughed awkwardly. "Well . . chemically, I'm not entirely sure - but it's definitely the recommended - "

"Not entirely sure? Are you guys kidding me?!" He reached towards the vial and, pushed back again, turned to the door for the emergency phone. The debate had moved from intriguing to absurdly repetitive. Time for reinforcements. His hand reached for the handle - _when had the door closed?_ - and he was suddenly pointing towards the floor, the exit sliding away above him as he was tackled and rolled onto his side.

"Xander, hold onto him, this'll just take a second." House's mouth went dust-dry, shocked despite himself that the kid had actually gone for him. He tried to get to his feet and was nearly there when he saw his cane slide away, skimming to the far end of the bed. He exhaled in a sharp burst as his weight fell on his right leg and was only stopped from falling by the arms pinning his own behind him, holding him up, holding him back. He gritted his teeth against the pain and twisted savagely, trying to ignore the scream in his thigh and the tremors down his calf. "Get off me you moron!" _Dammit, not one nurse patrols this ward?_

Behind him he heard the boy grunt out, "Buff, you wanna change jobs with me here? He's actually kinda strong." House's view of the blonde girl inexpertly loading the syringe was blocked by the older man's face.

"Please, stay calm - I know what it looks like but I promise you, we know what we're doing," the Brit said earnestly. House ignored him and squirmed, catching a glimpse of the green liquid flow sluggishly into the chamber. He felt a trickle of sharp horror creep down his chest at the idea that this might happen, that he might actually let this happen. That anyone could genuinely be this stupid. The sarcasm suddenly fell from his voice.

"Listen, just - just listen to me - " _don't let this happen, be Wilson, make them agree with you_ - "this, this is the wrong thing to do. Bad call, wrong call. When she does wake up and finds that one half of her brain isn't working because you pumped her full of that in some misguided attempt to help, think she's going to thank you for interfering? Trust me, she _won't_." He had kept his voice low in the hope of awakening some reason, but nothing changed, and he shouted, _screw the Wilson approach_, "You're going to _kill _her!"

Giles' hand clapped over his mouth as he continued to try and calm House down, as if _House_ was the insane one. He tugged desperately against the two of them - _Come on Wilson, come find me to get a beer. Tests back, Cameron. Cuddy, clinic duty, anyone!_ He was genuinely afraid now, forced to stand by at what could only be a clumsy execution, surely, and by these people who did seem to believe, in an awful way, that they were right -

Another wrench earned him a push forward that made his leg snap closed like a pen-knife and now he was on his stomach, the boy's hand covering his mouth, a knee grinding into his back.

"For God's sake, hurry up," muttered Giles' voice from behind him. His hands were pressing down on House's legs to stop him kicking, mercifully gripping him below the knee. "Xander, don't hurt him."

"Thanks G-man," the boy spluttered breathlessly. "I tried playing nicely, did you see that working?"

"I'm sorry about this," came the female voice. House stared up helplessly as she looked down at him, trying to hammer home with his eyes that this _was not right_. He watched her eyes break away and turn with compassion to the still figure and he gave a final, desperate writhe as the needle slid into the pale arm lying along the bed's edge. He let out a groan and kick before sinking down hopelessly. In the aftermath of adrenaline he felt his mind come loose suddenly, skittish and unfocused.

The grip on his legs vanished as Giles stumbled forward to the bedside and the knee dug more sharply into his back as he felt the boy, Xander, strain to look up. For a long minute, the muffled curses of the floored doctor were the only thing to fill the silence.

Then: "Wills . . ."

House heard a rustle and froze, listening frantically for a sign of change in the girl's condition. He felt faint. There was a quiet moan, and what sounded like a suppressed chuckle from the other girl, 'Buff', the syringe-wielder.

"She's back with us."

"B-Buffy?"

The voice dragged Xander away from House, leaving him prone on the floor as the boy rushed to the bedside. House rolled onto his side weakly and blinked away stars.

"Had us worried there, Wills. Nice way to get out of patrol though, I'll have to try that sometime."

"Willow, do you feel alright? Give it a minute."

"Yeah, you gotta be a bit woozy after three nights."

"Three?"

"Yep, sorry. Had a bit of a job tracking down the venom-thingy."

"Anti --"

"Anti-venom. Whatever."

The stars cleared a little and the urgency of the situation jolted House back into the moment. _Not dead._ He began to struggle painfully to his feet. Giles span round suddenly with an absurdly apologetic air and extended a hand that House ignored, eyeing him balefully for a second before dragging himself along the bed rail. A pair of wide dark eyes blinked at him sleepily.

"Who - who are you?"

"Didn't we tell you? Recruited an extra Scooby to cover for you," grinned Xander.

House pushed him out of the way, pushed his disbelief down to his stomach, and grabbed the girl's wrist to check her pulse. His eyes flicked to the vitals screen and automatically reached into his jacket for his penlight, wincing as he leaned over and said unsteadily, "Keep your eyes open. Check up." She was fine. She had just woken up. It was impossible. Even without the green horror-gel, it was ridiculous. He stared at her, breath still hitching in his chest as he replaced the penlight into his pocket, relief flooding him. The other three seemed to shrink around him, from dangerous lunatics to guilty children. He steadied himself on the railings and tried to order his thoughts. _So she's awake. One effect of that stuff. Or a possible effect. What else?_ He turned and stared at Buffy, his voice low and angry.

"What did you give her?"

"Um . . . It was . . . Well, it worked." He stared incredulously.

"How do you know it worked? Do you _understand _how it worked? Do you know any other little side-effects of that toxic home-brew?" Xander bristled and stepped between Buffy and the irate doctor.

"Hey, I know being a doctor and all you wanna know the details but lets just say it worked, ok? She's cured. You can chill."

"You could have killed her, you idiot! You don't even know what that stuff is, and then you go and - and effectively remove the only qualified doctor in the room - "

Buffy bent down and held out his cane, turning on a dazzling smile. "Sorry 'bout that." He snatched it angrily and turned back to his patient. She gave him a frightened little smile.

"Hey there. No harm done, huh? I feel great now. Really. Woah." She began to sit up, and as her eyes glazed at the sudden movement four pairs of hands reached out to steady her. She blinked at House again and then turned questioningly to Giles. "He - he was here for the whole venom bit?"

"Guy doesn't like to admit he's wrong," muttered Xander.

"He's a doctor here. Tried to stop us when he saw the syringe - understandable, really - "

"Think you can stand up?"

House shook his head, half to clear the spots and half in disbelief. "You can't let a three-day coma patient wander out of here unchecked!"

"I'm really fine now - "

"I get to decide that, not you or your cheering squad." Buffy tensed again.

"Look, she's cured! Deal, move on, we're going where we're needed, so I suggest you go back to your other patients." House glared for a second, but bit back a retort in preference of raising an alarm, and turned to go. He felt arms grab him again and he wheeled round.

"Are you serious? Get the hell off me now or I'll beat you to death with my cane - as a prelude to filing assault charges and a report of homicidal behaviour!"

Willow's eyes got ridiculously wide. The hands didn't slacken, but they all looked unsure.

"What do we do?"

"We need to get out of here, now! Spike has a plan."

"Yeah, but - "

"Are you all somehow mentally deranged?" snarled House, when Xander silenced him again with an arm pressed over his mouth, the other two flanking him and holding him in place. He heard his cane thud to the floor again and growled in annoyance. House's fear had been replaced by irritation; the girl was, miraculously, fine and some part of his brain was desperately still searching for any likely explanation of the trio's wonder drug, but the rest of him was suddenly aware of the ache in his leg and the pain in his arms and the fact that he was being treated like a trespasser from the psych ward in his own damn hospital. _Real interesting case, Wilson. Now go jump off a bridge._

"We can't hurt him, it's his job," fretted the red-head, who now seemed fully restored, swinging her legs carefully over the other side of the bed. House baulked at the mixture of pity and aggression he was receiving at the hands of these - expletives flamed and died in his mind, falling short of the all-too fiery sentiments boiling behind them. "Bump on the head always works for the G-man," grinned Xander. A chiding cluck rose up from the Brit. Buffy sighed as House squirmed in frustration. 

"Well, he's not exactly making it easy for us, but concussion probably isn't the way to go, Xand." The boy grunted.

"Damn civilians."

"Shut up." Giles' tone was clipped and wearied. "I'll look for something to restrain him with." Willow winced, and Xander snorted. "Yeah, I don't think the vamp thing is gonna wash with this guy."

"This isn't - nice," murmured Willow, picking up the cane again. House stared at her with disgust. _Four against the cripple is distasteful. Practising voodoo medicine on a comatose patient is apparently perfectly acceptable._ "Here, use this." He saw a coil of thin plastic tubing fly through the air as he was turned and pushed up against the far wall. He wriggled on principle, knowing how pointless it was. _Never trust a patient._ His leg burned fiercely. _No way am I asking to be fed Vicodin by a troupe of psychopaths._ Would they tie his legs? Hopefully the cane would make them think it unnecessary. The hand pressed against his mouth tightly as he felt the hard plastic pulled over his wrists. _This is absurd. What the hell do I tell Cuddy? Christ. Maybe I'm high and this is a hallucination._ The tubing bit into his skin and he glowered into the plaster. _Surely a hallucination wouldn't suck this much?_

"Just, don't - "

"Yeah, be quiet. I think you made your point clear."

"Would you like to sit down?" asked Willow. She seemed absurdly eager to put him at his ease, if such a thing were possible. Giles pushed the visitor's chair beneath him and House sat down immediately, feeling the fire ease off in his thigh. The four of them stood round him in a circle, looking awkward. _How socially decent of them. Not every day the people who hold you hostage have the grace to feel embarrassed about it._

"We need to tie him up properly or he'll raise the alarm before we get out of here," stated Xander. _I definitely don't like this kid,_ decided House.

"I don't think he - we should," murmured Giles, eyeing House's leg. House couldn't help but let out a faint hiss of pain as he tried to straighten it before him. He glared darkly at this new-found compassion.

"Oh please, spare me your concern. I'd hate to get preferential treatment." Buffy leaned forward and looped three coils of the tubing around his shoulders, pinning him to the chair, bad leg stuck out in front of him. House found himself mentally flinching at the thought that one of them might trip and fall on it.

"Wow, you sure found that 'sparing me any concern thing' remarkably easy," he added brightly as she pulled the last knots tight. Buffy flushed slightly before seizing Willow's arm.

"Come on, we don't have time for this. We need to get back to the library."

House snorted. "What, you guys heal the sick, break the law and then run to homework club?"

"What if he yells?" muttered Xander uncomfortably. "Should we gag him or . . dose him with something?"

"Don't even think about it," snapped House, covering a vivid sting of panic. "None of you are injecting me with anything. To call security, I have to get out to the phone in the corridor. Whilst tied to a chair. With a bad leg. The only people I could yell at down here are two coma patients, so unless you're planning on working your miracle cure on them, you should be fine for a daring escape."

Buffy nodded. "Ok, lets get out of here." Not meeting his eyes, the boy turned to the door, followed by Willow and Giles who both fumbled with quiet apologies as they left. Buffy went last.

"Wait." House leaned forward as far as his bonds would allow and eyed her curiously. "What did you give her?"

Buffy smiled a half-smile and looked down at the pearly-lit floor. Then she walked away, closing the door behind her.


	3. Chapter 3

The elevator closed smoothly behind them as Buffy stabbed the topmost button.

"Here Wills, put this on. You need a jacket."

"Thanks. Guess that demon really did a number on me, huh?"

Buffy looked down ruefully. "Pretty much. When I got back and you'd gone - I was so worried, Wills. Turns out some guy from the Bronze had called an ambulance though."

Willow grinned. "There now, isn't that reassuring? There are some good, upstanding citizens in Sunnydale after all!"

Xander rolled his eyes as he put his arm around the girl's shoulders."Will, only you could be this upbeat ten minutes out of a coma."

"I feel bad for that doctor though. It's a shame that, you know. Medical procedures."

"Yeah, that is a tragedy. When does this thing stop?"

"We're going to the roof," announced Buffy. "Darker, fire escape, hopefully dodge the non-grainy CCTV and any pesky nurses."

Xander grinned impishly as the doors slid back open. "I wouldn't be against say, one or two pesky nurses, if you know what I'm saying?"

"Yes, I think we do, what with it having all the subtlety of a lead pipe to the skull," snapped Giles peevishly. "Let's get out of here before we get any visitors."

"Definitely a good call," muttered Buffy.

* * *

_Damn._ How long 'til someone came to check down here? Early morning, even later? The hard plastic bit into his wrists when he struggled. His thigh was throbbing for the Vicodin that he could feel in his damn pocket. Who was going to find him here, like this? Something inside him shrivelled as he imagined Cameron walking in on him and untying him and staring at him pityingly with her saucer eyes. _Let it not be Cameron. Christ, not Chase or Foreman either, if it should take that long._ He suddenly wished they'd just hit him on the head and had done with it. He felt exhausted. His back ached from where the boy - surprisingly muscular, as it turned out - had ploughed into him and his arms felt tight. He tried not to think about his leg. He couldn't just sit here and not struggle, but moving simply added to his misery. Only the hope of not being discovered like this kept him tugging away. Active over passive; much better to go and tell than to sit like some kid and be found. _How the hell did that girl manage to twist plastic so goddamn tight?!_

How were they even planning on getting out of the hospital? He wasn't sure if he wanted them to be stopped, wanted someone to be sent down here to investigate. _Being shot had more glamour,_ he thought ruefully. _Apart from the catheter, obviously. I was pretty much out for that part though._ He didn't know how much later it was when he heard the lift chime go off. His stomach bubbled nervously. "Hello?"

Doors opened at the other end of the corridor and he heard a voice, dulled to a mutter by the distance. He wiggled his fingers in an effort to restore some circulation. "Hey!"

"House?" House froze for a second. The tension drained from his body and suddenly this was all just ridiculous and infuriating rather than the anxious weight it had been in his gut a few seconds earlier.

"House? You still here?"

"Wilson?! Get the hell in here!"

* * *

As four figures crept silently through the shadowy outskirts of the hospital, another couple was heading through the damp car park, drifting like ghosts over the taxi ramps and parking bays. Their path was almost crossed by an ageing woman, arm in a sling, walking tiredly towards the bus stop. The shorter of the two men paused and cast his eyes hungrily at her retreating back.

"How 'bout we grab a bite?"

The taller man turned and looked thoughtfully at her faltering exit. He sucked his teeth thoughtfully.

"Nah."

In the pale moonlight, his face was lit with an eerie, almost angelic glow. It grinned evilly.

"Let's save ourselves for the good stuff."

* * *

House felt the strangest mixture of reluctance and delight when the door opened and Wilson peeked in curiously. Now he was here, now House was safe and back in the normal world without crazed Britons and alien serums, he could feel the sting of his imprisonment more vividly - it became translated into something real. He suddenly felt twice as pissed off. As Wilson stepped fully into the room, mouth agape, reluctance was replaced with irritation even as the song of relief reached a crescendo in his head.

"Get over here."

"House, what - " Wilson walked forward and stared in disbelief at the plastic tubing before meeting his eyes. "Is this - a joke?"

"No, it's how I like to unwind," he snapped. "Get a knife or something while I still have some blood-flow."

Wilson walked dazedly towards a draw and pulled out a blade. "What - what the hell happened?" He knelt down in front of the chair and saw a darkening bruise on House's temple, a souvenir from his collision with the floor. The situation hit him. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine." He didn't meet his eyes. Wilson started sawing through the tubing around his shoulders, his own pulse suddenly jumping to life in his ears.

"You were attacked?"

"Only briefly. They played nice. Relatively speaking."

He twisted to the side, baring his wrists as best he could as Wilson shifted position to reach them. Wilson jolted suddenly - _"Ow!!",_ - realising;

"Where's the patient?!"

House waited until his wrists were free and teased his arms forward, unable to suppress a groan. "She's gone."

Wilson dropped the blade to the floor and sank back on his haunches. "They kidnapped a comatose girl?!"

House didn't think he'd ever seen him look so horrified. He flexed his fingers painfully and reached for his Vicodin. "You _lacerated_ me!"

"House!"

"She left with her three buddies after they woke her up." Wilson stared at him blankly. "Yeah I know, it didn't make much sense to me either. She seemed fairly happy to scamper off though so I'm not sure it was worth my trying to stop them." His hands were numb. Wilson automatically reached for the bottle and popped the cap for him, moving round to sit on the edge of the bed.

"That's - not possible."

_Twenty minutes 'til they kick in._ House shifted his leg cautiously. "I know. These - this man, and these two teenagers came in and I heard them and they were going to inject her with this stuff, god knows what, and I ended up getting tackled. When she woke up, I got left here to facilitate their speedy exit." He shut his eyes as a wave of pain throbbed through his thigh. "Remind me again why you encourage me to give a rat's ass about the patient?"

Wilson stood up and shook his head a few times, as if expecting House and the room to evaporate around him and let him to wake up at his desk upstairs. "Can you stand up? We have to go - report this. This is crazy."

"Give me a minute." Wilson wordlessly passed him the cane and House leaned his forehead on the familiar ridge of wood. This simple action seemed to cool his thoughts and lend them order.

"I have no idea what they gave her - they didn't seem to know either. I can't figure it out. Or why they needed to get out of here so fast. Pass me her chart."

Wilson paced in front of him, distinctly uninterested in the puzzle and agitated by the disappearance of the girl. "I can't believe they - It was . . . her own free will?"

"Hey, you wake up from a coma, you wanna go home with your buddies. She was happy as Larry. Happy as Laura. You know."

"Stand up, I want to check you out."

"I always talk like this. It's not proof of concussion."

"I know that."

"I'm fine."

"That's what I want to check. You look pretty scuffed up."

"'Scuffed up'?"

"You know what I mean." Wilson batted away House's hand and leaned over the bruise to his temple. "They hit you?"

"There was general scuffing."

"Yeah, I've seen you when Cuddy tries to push an alternate treatment. No way you let this go easily." House pushed himself tentatively from the seat, again saying a silent thank you to no-one in particular that it was Wilson who had stumbled upon him.

"I threatened to beat them to death with my cane. It didn't go down well."

Wilson smiled slightly and put a balancing arm on his friend's shoulder. "Odd. It normally works like a charm. Who were they?"

There was a sudden movement behind them. "And more importantly", drawled a voice, "where the hell have they gone?"

* * *

They had cleared the fire-escape, crossed the rain-slicked car park and were well on the way to the van when Willow froze suddenly in her tracks. "Uh . . . Buffy?"

"Yeah?"

"We're hurrying because we think Spike is up to something, right?"

"You - don't like that plan?" asked Buffy inquiringly.

"No, it's a great plan except - you knew I was here from the guy at the Bronze, right? The place where pretty much all the vamps hang out? Spike can check the records to see what room I was in, public building and all - "

Xander stared. "But Wills, you're with us now. Not a Scooby snack."

Giles turned pale. "Oh, God."

"Wha - Oh! _Oh_." Buffy turned and stared at Giles in horror. "God, I was so busy trying to get Will home and venomed up I totally . . ." She went pale. "If they come, we've left him gift-wrapped!"

"_Ouch_," muttered Xander. "Now I feel even worse." He shifted under their glares. "What? I felt bad before, too."

"Get Willow out of here," Buffy stated, streaking back towards the hospital.

"Buff, you might need help!"

"I'll be fine. I'll just - move him. Untie him. Something. I'm sure he's still vamp-free."


	4. Chapter 4

**Many thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! They are greatly appreciated. Here is the next installment, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to my beta reader _elesecks_, who helped me with the early stages of this story.**

* * *

Wilson spun round in shock. Two men had materialised - literally, it seemed, _where had they come from?!_ - on the far side of the bed. "What the hell?!"

House gripped his cane and moved to stand beside Wilson, staring at the rain-soaked strangers. The window flapped open above them, but _too high_ above them to lend any sense to the situation. Wilson blinked rapidly as if they might just go away.

_Get with it, Wilson! It's not a damn dream! _House had a sudden uncomfortable recollection of the teens muttering, something about danger, or a plan . . .

"How did you get in here?" demanded Wilson. The taller of the two, white blonde, young and sneering, smirked at him.

"Took a short cut. Can't stand receptionists. We're looking for our friend, you see. Wondered if you might tell us where she's got to?"

"She's been discharged," said House abruptly, mentally assessing the amount by which all Britons had fallen in his estimation this evening. He'd have to remember to be especially rude to Chase tomorrow.

"Oh dear, oh dear. That is a shame. I was so looking forward to our reunion."

The darker haired man looked at the blonde deferentially from the corner. _Hired muscle_, thought Wilson uncomfortably. House wasn't exactly at his fighting best but they should be OK to raise an alarm if there was trouble. He stepped back slightly towards the corridor.

"Don't suppose you might tell me where she went? Sounds like you saw her last." The tall man looked cockily over at House.

_You're not in the Sex Pistols. Get over yourself._ House bit his tongue, and tried not to choke on the unfamiliar sensation.

"Can't help you. Visiting hours are over anyway. You may not have noticed, but it's pretty late." House nudged Wilson with his foot whilst meeting the other man's gaze calmly. _Run and press the button, ass._ Wilson shifted slightly and stepped back again. _Fuck it,_ he thought. With a sudden spurt he turned and strode towards the door, grasping the handle and hoping he looked professional rather than cowardly. Then the world slipped.

It shouldn't be possible to move that fast. The blonde had somehow leapt forward, and grabbed him by the collar and spun him round to smash him against the wall, all in one fluid movement. White hand gripping his collar firmly, Wilson found himself nose to nose with the man. His stomach dropped when he saw the vicious scar that cleaved his eyebrow. _Excellent. I get the experienced brawler._

"Get the hell off him!" shouted House, stepping forward. Wilson snapped out of whatever charm had held him still for those seconds and shoved the man angrily, gratified when the blonde took a step back and raised his hands apologetically.

"Hey calm down sport, just having a laugh with you. Just wanted to see if you'd seen my friend is all. Not looking for a fight, honest." He looked singularly unrepentant. Wilson pulled down his collar and stared until the man lowered his hands before stepping towards House again. The second his eyes flicked away, the man levelled a punch at his gut that knocked Wilson onto all-fours, gasping for air.

"You son of a - " House grabbed the bed rail and pulled himself forward, raising the cane to swipe the man hard across the arm so that he fell away from Wilson in pain. Even as he fell, the man span in a white gold blur and an almost animal sound ripped the air. Before House could react he was backhanded impossibly hard across the face; he flew through the air to crash into the dark haired man, who flung him back to the floor like a rag. Wilson stared, transfixed, unable to yell, as his friend fell crumpled across the room.

_That's not possible. This guy isn't human. Oh shit._ "House . . ," he sucked in a breath and pushed himself to his knees. "Bastard," he panted furiously at the white haired man.

"Name's Spike, actually. Shouldn't have lied to us." The hand grabbed his shirtfront and pinned him against the green wall, feet dangling above the floor. His arm didn't seem to feel any strain. "Aw. Sad, isn't it? That this is what you get for treating all these little people. Making sure they all fit together right and their blood and their bones are all working nicely." He gave what Wilson's hindbrain felt was a distinctly predatory grin. "All those people you work to save, they still leave you here to get your nicely arranged innards ripped out while they go and save their own arses."

Wilson couldn't feel his pulse at all now; or his legs; or where his hands might be. Something about the man's eyes held him pinned in his gaze and took up the whole world. His brain recoiled as it registered something about innards._ Shit. It's just talk. Oh God._ He tore himself away desperately from those eyes and kicked out, moved to punch, but the other hand snaked up and caught his wrist even as he made the fist. The shorter man came closer, stepping carelessly over House's body. Wilson felt another rush of anger; "Let go - " _Let go?_ His voice sounded pathetic to his own ears, _try 'Get the fuck off', find your balls -_

"Sssh. You'll upset me," drawled Spike, his arm casually pressing down harder against Wilson's throat.

"You wanna have him, Spike? I'll have that one."

"Calm down, Michael. We're both going to wait. See, our playmate Willow might have gone, but this man is handy too, see. Just what we need." Spike grinned for the first time as if he just couldn't suppress it, rather than the cool, calculated smiles that had punctuated his speech so far. He beamed up into Wilson's dark eyes. "He's a doctor. He's coming with us."

"Get your hands off him."

Wilson tried to turn but couldn't, couldn't see the owner of the voice until he was dropped to the floor in a heap as Spike's interest was refocused like a laser upon the intruder. He gasped for breath and stared in horror as he saw a girl, a _teenager_, stalk in through the door.

Spike tensed. "Well, well, well. What a nice surprise."

Wilson dragged himself into a sitting position to meet the girl's gaze. "Get out of here," he groaned. She looked at him in concern.

"Are you ok?"

"Run away . . . get help," he added. "Run!" The girl looked appreciative for a second, and then turned back to Spike.

"That's nice of you, but I don't think I'll be the one running today." She saw House on the floor and glared. "What have you done?"

"He's fine," said Spike lazily. "Bang on the head, bounced off the walls. He'll be up and about in no time. Only not. Not when I've finished with him."

"You just wait 'til I'm finished with you," the girl breathed, and launched herself with an incredible leap at the man, kicking and diving and punching as he seamlessly reacted to her movements as if it was all some terrible choreographed dance. They both landed on the bed, ducking and weaving while Wilson staggered to a standing position, trying to understand what the hell was happening. _She's a ninja,_ he thought stupidly.

There was a sharp crack and the girl fell backwards and hit the floor. There was a triumphant "Ha!" from Spike as he stood over her, ready to pounce, and then Wilson hurled himself at the leather-clad back. Spike toppled and rolled -_ away from the kid, yes,_ - and Wilson sat on top of him, getting in several hard punches to his jaw as the man reeled under him. He punched twice more: the man wasn't fighting back anymore. The doctor in him screamed warnings about brain damage and internal bleeding and he stopped and sat back gasping, turning to the girl. She sprang back up to fling herself at Michael, who was moving in behind Wilson - _god, he hadn't even noticed,_ - and then a hand shot out and grabbed his throat.

Spike was back, crushing his windpipe and forcing him to the ground as Wilson frantically scrabbled to bend the fingers back. Spike's face seemed to have healed already to Wilson's blurring gaze, seemed to be shifting and remoulding beneath the pale skin, but that couldn't be - purple splotches pin-wheeled in front of those gleaming eyes, when the girl swivelled round in the midst of her fight and neatly scissor-kicked Spike in the head. Wilson sprawled back dizzily. He didn't have time to marvel long at the girl's fighting, or her apparent strength, or the fact that everyone else in the room seemed to be able to move twenty times faster than him, before something struck his temple and the spinning world closed in on itself and bled into blackness.

Buffy flipped back over the bed and grabbed the cane from where it lay awkwardly under House's dead weight. She snapped it easily over one knee, grabbed the shard, and twirled it with deadly accuracy into Michael's heart. There was a soft powdery noise, and ash bloomed from where his chest had been. She twirled the second half and turned to Wilson; he lay unconscious under Spike's still form. "They always miss the fancy stuff," she grumbled. She turned to where the doctor lay who she had met earlier - _yes, lets go with met, that sounds so much better than sat on and tied up_ - and shook him gently.

"Doctor - hey, its me. Wake up." She stared anxiously at the white, set face. "I'm really sorry about the vamps, come on, wake up - "

She was an idiot. Even as she heard the swish of leather she knew what was happening and she span round just in time to see the dark haired man hoisted by his collar out through the open window.

"Spike!"

She vaulted through the open space, landed nimbly on the thin ledge. Nothing: still air, still space around her with only a deserted car park and the far away sounds of traffic, diluted by the distance. _Oh, god. Where did they go?_

"Spike, come out and fight me!" Nothing. "Spike, let him go! Leave him here!"

She turned desperately on the narrow ledge against the nightscape of the busy city, but the doctor she had fought with had vanished.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far, and apologies for the delay in updating! Here is the next part, I hope you enjoy it.**

* * *

House woke up to warmth, and a pain in his head that immediately clamoured to crescendo, and the smells of tea and mustiness. He opened his eyes and looked hard at the giant grey thing that hovered in front his eyes, before blinking it slowly into focus and realising - it was a button. _Not my button._ He inched his head off the folded jacket and stared. Tweed. _Definitely not my button._

He sat up and found that he had being lying on a plastic-wrapped mattress. The grasping hands that must have carried him here, laid him out like a corpse, twitched to life in his mind and he felt himself squirm suddenly, as if to break free from their invisible clutches. The plastic squeaked indignantly.

It was foolishly optimistic to look for his cane, but he couldn't help glancing around anyway, hoping it might be propped up against one of the bland walls. The place looked like an unfurnished hotel room. He could imagine himself being fifty stories up, or twenty below street level, with no way of telling; surrounded on every side by more of these faceless rooms stretching off in every direction. A hive. He thought of Wilson, and dragged himself to his feet.

House could hear the white noise of voices just beyond his hearing. He shuffled as quietly as possible towards the half-open door. It felt like a set-up, emphasised as it was in the otherwise featureless white box: a hungry invitation to explore.

"I'll go to the warehouse."

"No! How many times Buff, this has got 'Slayer trap' written all over it! We know they're planning something."

"This is my responsibility! It's my _fault_. I'm not just waiting here for them to kill him and make the next move!"

"There is some sort of method to this, Buffy. I think we can assume no harm will come to him at present, and they didn't go to that trouble to just . . .".

The British voice trailed off awkwardly. House closed his eyes and grimaced._ Same crowd, same cryptic crap, new space._ How the hell did he get here? And when would these people start making any kind of sense? The final voice of the quartet chimed in, and House mentally matched the low tone with the pale, drawn face of its owner.

"I know - I know you're worried Buffy, but this wasn't your fault. And you can't go to the warehouse, not while this - stuff, keeps happening."

"Ok, so it's not ideal. But who else is a better candidate? You guys? I still have a better chance of - "

"That's all very heroic and self-sacrificing of you Buff, but we can actually help. We just need a plan. A counter-plan. Remember what happened the last few times you decided to do the lone wolf thing?"

House took advantage of the shocked, pained silence to stump into the room, mainly to be spared the mental process of considering what might actually be happening to him. The four swivelled to face him from their huddle around the table and perversely enough, he felt himself relaxing. _Now we're rolling._ He could react now, not worry. Not agonize over choices. Lead in off the cuff, and hope he didn't inadvertently lead to his own messy, undignified murder in whatever tacky inn-chain this was. He hoped the walls were as thin as they looked.

Buffy's face was white and somewhere between expressing stubborn rage and the first signs of tears. Giles looked as if he hadn't slept in a long time. House wondered briefly how bad he himself looked, as one hand automatically darted to his pocket to retrieve the plastic vial. If he took a couple extra, maybe the nauseating thump in his head might quieten down.

As he tilted back to swallow the pills, he gave the room a quick once-over._ Hostage situation? DDX!_, he thought, surprising himself with his flippancy. There was a tiny kitchen to his left, without the room to swing a kettle, a lonely wicker chair just to the right of the gathering around the wooden table, and, irritatingly positioned behind the group in front of him, a heavier wooden door that hinted at the possibility of a real exit. It looked locked.

The dark haired boy (_Xander_, his brain supplied helpfully, _you hate him_,) gave him an awkward smile. "Hey there, doctor-man. Dorito?"

The tension didn't vanish, but something in the air slackened as Willow turned to glare at Xander and then offered a faltering smile of her own.

"How are you feeling? Are you . . ?"

House met her gaze deadpan, and took a lurching step forward, gratified that the girl had wisely trailed off into silence. He reached the back of the wicker chair and gripped it, looking round at the circle of taut faces.

"Anyone want to tell me what the hell's going on?"

He should probably, he reflected, be more afraid and less abrasive. But he couldn't help it. Down in his gut he'd been expecting the white-blonde man, a fear he had only allowed to surface in his mind the moment that the facts had joyfully extinguished it. The blonde man was, he recalled, violent and unpredictable. Instead, he was here with the World's Most Hesitant Kidnappers, whose reign of terror so far consisted of healing the sick (_apparently_, he reminded himself) and sitting on doctors in as considerate a manner as possible. _Tweed pillow,_ he thought absently. He couldn't feel too afraid.

Four mouths opened, and then closed again. He rolled his eyes and lowered himself carefully onto the wicker seat.

"I see. Have to say I appreciate the lack of tubing cutting off the blood supply to my wrists this time, but stealing a guy's cane isn't exactly considered fair play either. Just call me old-fashioned."

"Ah." Giles looked embarrassed and Buffy pressed her lips together in a _what-can-you-do?_ expression. Willow jumped up from the table and dashed to the kitchenette, where a pair of silver crutches were propped against the sink.

"Buffy br - Your cane got broken, er, somehow, back at the hospital, but we took these on the way out." She held them out to him and smiled an unnervingly endearing smile. "You can have one, or both, I don't know which is better."

House took them silently from her outstretched hand and stifled a sigh at the thought of crutching his way back to the hospital. He'd never been able to stand the things, even when he hadn't been able to stand without them. Willow hovered nervously.

"Are they - ok?"

_Christ. I've managed to find the only person who's more well-meaning than Cameron._ "Fine," he muttered. They were impersonal and as fake as the hotel room. Too silver and shiny; his eyes hurt to look at them, reminding him of his concussion. He touched his head gingerly, and felt a rough crust of blood. He suddenly felt furious.

"Why am I here? And make sure you include something useful about where 'here' is and why I'm not going to have you all arrested in the answer."

Buffy spoke up, her voice steadier than he would have anticipated. "We're in a hotel room. You're still in New Jersey. And for the rest, I can promise you, none of us have time for the cops right now."

House's heart made a little dip of hope, although logically he must have known that he couldn't have travelled very far. He might only be ten minutes from his home and his scotch and his spare cane.

"I was hoping for a slightly more convincing reason than your busy timetable, and an actual answer to the question," he replied. He didn't bother trying to curb his tongue; he felt certain the girl could easily handle his tone. "Where's Wilson?"

_Or maybe not._ Buffy's face drained of colour again, and the silence took on a distinctly heavier, guiltier tinge that only served to feed the urge in House's stomach to really piss someone off. "Where is he? You guys not know Doctor Wilson? Let me fill you in: he was probably lying on the floor next to me. Puppy dog eyes, god-awful tie, last seen being mauled by your biker buddies."

The furious bite of his speech couldn't be suppressed, but he didn't understand why no one was answering him and he didn't want to listen to the swell of fear in his own stomach as Buffy looked away and the others stared at the floor. "He get his own suite, did he?"

Giles spoke and House recognised the tone; it was one that doctors used a lot, but it made no sense in this setting and something important seemed to be sliding away from his understanding.

"He's . . . not here."

No one said anything else, anything _helpful_, for an interminably long time.

"I see that, but where is he?" He had to swallow and concentrate before he spoke, to make it sound exasperated rather than frightened. Buffy lowered her eyes and his insides jolted with something, a feeling a little like anger but with an icy edge to it. "Did you leave him at the hospital?"

Something about their earlier conversation was yammering in the small part of his head that wasn't currently occupied with the swinging sledgehammers of concussion, but he pushed it away. Nonetheless, his voice wasn't quite his own when he said, "Did he _need _to be left at the hospital?"

Of course, they didn't notice the faint waver in his tone as he spoke, or the way his knuckles whitened convulsively on his knees. Wilson was the only one who ever noticed these little things.


	6. Chapter 6

**Next part up! Let me know what you think.**

* * *

The first thing Wilson was aware of was that he was freezing. The side of his face pressed to the floor felt like it had been coated in ice. _Linoleum shouldn't be this cold,_ he thought muzzily. Satisfied with this analysis, he lay limply in place until the rest of his thoughts slowly crept forward and nudged him towards consciousness. _Cold. Head hurt, back hurt, arms hurt._ He cautiously opened an eye: it was dark. _Ah. Not the hospital._He curled upwards until he was in what might charitably be called a sitting position, stomach muscles protesting angrily. Moving his hands to prop his weight up a little, he realised they were bound in front of him with rope. Chunky, fraying, heavy-duty stuff knotted messily but with a no-nonsense tightness. It was wrapped around his ankles too. He blinked stupidly at it. _Why aren't I panicking yet?_

He decided to ride the wave of sleepy detachment and looked round inquisitively. Water was dripping with irritating little plinking sounds from some rusted pipes near the ceiling. _Unsanitary, _sniped a little voice in his head, and he wondered briefly about what this voice revealed about him given his current situation. Concrete, bricks, something that looked a little like an oil drum, a steel door, a piece of sacking strung up over what might be a window high up the wall. That was it. The room was square and dull and dark. No mouldering skeletons in the corner, no manacles hanging from hooks, no distant screams. He'd been dumped in an abandoned building, maybe a warehouse cellar. _Huh._ With dopey complacence, he considered lying back down and just sleeping through whatever was happening. Then a rat scurried forward and he let out a small scream and pushed himself backwards frantically until he hit the far wall.

And suddenly he was actually _here_: adrenaline flooded him, his heart smacked into his ribs and his breathing bounced harshly in his ears, o_h shit oh shit oh shit where the hell am I?_

He stared, petrified, as the rat sniffed the floor where he had been lying and looked up at him with bright-eyed malevolence.

_It's just a rodent. Like Steve, only probably carrying some horrific strain of rabies. Don't panic._

Synapses sparked dully in his head underneath his terror, thoughts colliding clumsily.

_Steve. Steve is a rat. Steve is House's rat. House is . . House was . ._ Not in this room. A new fear, heavier, but without the eye-popping sharpness of the former, slowly seeped into his stomach and burned there. Wilson looked round for some clue of his friend, the awkward slump of House's body on the hospital floor rising out of his memory. He tugged at the bindings on his wrists and felt the skin rubbed raw beneath the coarse rope. Within a minute it hurt enough to make him gasp with each new twist, but it helped to focus his thoughts.

_Ok, be calm. Assess. Don't freak out._

Another lance of pain. House wasn't here. Given where 'here' was, that was probably a good thing. He must have been left at the hospital; a nurse would have found him by now. House was ok. Wilson punctuated each stub of a thought with a twist and a gasp. The pattern made him feel perversely calmer.

So, meanwhile, _he _actually was here. It wasn't . . good, but Spike probably didn't want to add to the criminal charges he was mounting up; maybe - _(tug, twist, gasp)_ - maybe, he was just here as revenge for the punches. He'd be found, or he'd escape, and then go to bed and it would all be over. _Denial!_ sang out another voice from inside his head, but the rest of him wheeled round and mentally screamed at it to shut up. He squeezed his eyes shut and repeated his former conclusion under his breath until he could almost believe it was true. When he opened his eyes, he felt marginally calmer.

God, he was dumb. The door might be open; he could just crawl for help. It lacked a certain something in the dignity department, but he was too busy lacking feeling in his extremities to care. Wilson shuffled forward on his ass and tried not to imagine the expression on the face of whatever poor person he would have to ask for help.

_Why on earth had Spike left him in a warehouse? Teach him a lesson?_ It didn't make sense. He didn't care; he was going to leave, and thus make sure it never mattered. He reached the door, managed to kneel and contemplated dragging himself into a standing position on his bound ankles, when there was a faint _click_. He froze as panic surged freshly through him.

_Not 'left' in a warehouse. 'Kept' in a warehouse._

The door slammed open and smashed him back across the floor. He lay on his back dizzily, only half-aware of the voices that followed the thunderclap of the steel door.

"Look at that, the doc's awake already! How you feeling?"

Deliberate steps, and suddenly Wilson was blinking up at Spike, absurdly tall and unfairly nonchalant as he peered down at the floored doctor. He rolled up and frantically pushed himself back a few paces. Spike snorted and easily closed the distance until he was looking directly down at him. "What you running away for? How unfriendly. Is that a way to reward us for our hospitality?"

Wilson stared at him, speechless. Spike rolled his eyes in exasperation and grabbed Wilson's shirt-front, pulling him up until he hung face-to-face before him, pale and wide-eyed. "What . . . do you want?" Wilson managed to croak out, and some small part of him was grateful that the frantic shrill of horrific possibilities that had been racing through his mind had been dulled to leave it white and empty and filled with air, only capable processing big, simple thoughts like _'How is he so strong?'_ and _'I wish I could touch the floor'_.

Spike grinned and turned his head. "Dru! Come over here, darlin'. Got a treat for you." A strange, lilting voice floated through the dark space beyond the door:

"Can I play with it now?"

Spike turned back and cast him an odd look that was half-taunting, half-jealous. Wilson didn't feel reassured. The hand dropped him and he fell on his ass painfully as a woman drifted into the room and focussed on him in delight.

"Oh, Spike. It's _lovely_."

Wilson glanced stupidly down at his own torn shirt as he realised the woman was wearing his white lab coat, fondling the sleeves absently as it hung over what looked like a black evening gown. He found his voice, and tried to muster some force into it. "What's going on?"

"All in good time," Spike said coolly. He stretched out an arm to the dawdling woman. Their fingers entwined and he twirled her towards them. Wilson half-raised his bound hands in front of his chest and gazed at them both imploringly, trying to sound calm, rational, use some of those damn persuasive skills House was always mocking him about. _Maybe I can get a release_ and _a thank-you if I word it right,_ he thought desperately.

"Look, I don't know what this is but - but I won't press charges or anything, I don't know who either of you are, so," - he paused as the eyes of the woman, unnervingly managing to be both piercing and vacant, roamed over his face, - "so, whatever this is, . . I won't cause any trouble, I'll just go - "

"And leave us alone after we've grown so close?" smirked Spike. "We got quite intimate back there at the hospital, didn't we doc? Cracked my face open good and proper." Wilson blanched and began to stutter out an apology even as he registered the flawless, unbroken skin he'd been hitting what could only have been a couple of hours ago. "No, no, don't apologise. We were having a scrap: fair's fair."

Spike started circling him casually as Dru giggled and stroked her new coat. _Circling,_ registered Wilson numbly. _Like a shark. _

Spike bent down suddenly and laid his arm conspiratorially on Wilson's shoulder, and Wilson realised that he had been holding his breath. "If I was really a man to hold a grudge, well - " Spike smiled in a way that made his stomach shrink. "They'd still be looking for the bits next Christmas." He laughed and turned to the woman. "Well, my love?"

_She has to help me_, prayed Wilson (and he _knew_ he was panicking when the voice in his head started babbling,) _she can't be like him, vicious, maybe she's scared of him too, what can she possibly be getting out of this?!_

"Oh Spike, he's perfect." She crouched down and looked at him with the fascination of a child with a new plaything, reminding him uncomfortably of that same dangerous edge that led children to hurl their dolls out of the pram or to burn the wings off insects. She reached out to touch him and he recoiled. She didn't look concerned, Wilson realised in a moment of sickly clarity. She looked gleeful, feral. "He's so afraid, look."

Wilson was still himself enough to flush at this commentary and he shouted suddenly, his voice breaking a little on the last words: "Look, what the hell do you want? I'm not playing your games!"

Drusilla hissed like she'd been bitten and stood abruptly and Wilson prayed he hadn't just made the worst, the _last_ mistake of his life. He waited desperately in the tense silence for something to happen. Finally Spike exhaled, and looked at him inquiringly."You're a doctor, right, doc?"

"Y-Yes. . ."

"A good one?"

"I - " he saw impatience gleam in Spike's eyes and spoke more hurriedly, "Yes, I'm good, I'm, I'm the head of Oncology, I'm a good doctor." _So don't kill me_, he added privately. "Is - do you know someone sick?" he ventured. "I could help - "

"Dru, come here, love." Wilson watched her half-dance back across the room towards him. _Well, she's most definitely crazy,_ he thought flatly. _Perfect. They're both psychotic._ Spike watched her affectionately and then turned, suddenly serious.

"What about Dru, then? Think she's sick?"

Something in the way he said it made Wilson feel like there was a lot riding on his answer. Like whether or not he'd live through the next ten minutes. He swallowed nervously. "Well . . I mean, I don't - "

Drusilla knelt down again, reaching out, and Wilson steeled himself not to flinch away as her fingers began a slow, threading dance down his cheek. He inhaled sharply at the coldness of her fingers as they slid into the hollow beneath his jaw-line and lay thumping dully against his pulse.

"Well?" Spike's eyes looked threatening.

_You mean apart from the fact she's clearly fucking insane?!_ Words, he realised dimly, were expected of him.

"She - she's very cold, . . . she could have - hypothermia - ?"

There was a terrible silence. Then Spike burst into laughter and swept Drusilla up and away from him.

"Hear that baby? There's nothing wrong with your insides. You passed the first test, doc." Drusilla mewled and curled into his chest.

"That man said my head was all mixed up, Spike - but he was wrong, wasn't he?"

"He was mad." They kissed passionately. Absurdly, Wilson wondered where he should look. "Doc didn't diagnose you with crazy, pet. We'll have to go and tell him the good news."

"Can I tell him, Spike? I'll let you watch . . .".

Wilson felt sick from the tension and uncertainty of it all - he didn't know the right thing to say, or what might be the wrong thing, the thing that might unleash all of their fucking_ lunacy_ and anger on him. He'd spent so long around so many people with fear and pain and death on their horizons, people with every reason to go off the rails, but he still felt horribly out of his depth. He watched them as they laughed softly together and wandered back to the door. Wilson didn't _know_ these people; what they wanted or why they were acting this way. They were alien, and they terrified him.

They were leaving. He was torn between relief that the interview seemed to be over, and the desperate urge to shout out, _what about me? What are you going to do?_ Spike stuck his head back over his shoulder as he guided Drusilla out the door.

"You stick around now, doc. We've got a job for you later."

And the door closed. A bolt slid home, and Wilson sank back in a boneless heap onto the floor.

_Christ. I have to get out of here._

And then all over again, there was a movement behind him, and a hand pressed over his mouth.


	7. Chapter 7

**Thanks again for all the reviews, and sorry for the delay on this bit. Hope you enjoy this new part . . . **

* * *

The room suggested the word '_cavernous'_. Its actual size was hard to determine, drenched as it was in darkness; but flickering shapes that hovered on the periphery of its illuminated centre suggested that more people - or possibly, given the nature of this room, more _creatures, _more _things, - _were hiding just beyond detection. 

The walls were stained with splashes of something rust-red, and by the light of the chandelier - (bereft of diamonds, a wire skeleton swinging gently from a chain) - the room itself acquired an eerie _pulse_ and sense of pressure, seeming to expand and contract in time with the dancing shadows.

And joining the rhythm of this fire-lit throb were two figures, spot-lit in the room's centre by a single ray of moonlight. The pale beam lanced down through a chink in the ceiling; it traced the contours of the woman's lithe body as she stepped away from Spike.

He groaned in exasperation, and kicked a huddled shape that lay on the floor. An arm fell into the circle of light, hitting the concrete floor with a dull _thwack_. Spike kicked the something - _someone - _again in annoyance, so that it rolled sluggishly back into the shadows.

"Didn't even qualify as an _hors-d'oeuvre,_ that one."

Drusilla ignored him. She was swaying slightly, twisting her hands around each other in complicated patterns as she slid something through her fingers. Spike watched her, his complaint unheeded, and felt himself grow angry.

"Not enough in him to fill you up, was there pet?"

Drusilla continued on with her strange rite, a small smile curving her lips. The silk strip flapped uselessly in the air as she held it up and suddenly breathed its scent in deeply. Spike clenched his jaw.

"I _said,_" -and he was _there_, face to face with Drusilla and scrunching the material ruthlessly - "you must be hungry. Right, Dru?"

She reclaimed the tie petulantly, and wrapped it around her arms, her heavy-lidded eyes half-closing in pleasure. "I'm not hungry. I have my pet. I want to claim him."

Spike grimaced. "Not the doc, sweetheart, not him. We need him, you know that."

"Then after, I want him then. He has eyes . . . "

"Everyone has eyes, pet." Spike slouched over to the edge of the darkness and squinted. "Let's use him first, you can play later."

**He is of no use. I do not deem him necessary.**

The voice that rolled out of the darkness was deep and _old_ somehow; it belonged in caverns, underground spaces, and its power seemed as inexorable as the slow, steady buckle of a mountain range. Spike glowered.

"It is necessary."

**He has not the power I need. Therefore, he is of no importance. I desire the Slayer.**

"Yes, yes, we can do that too. We can do _both._ Why start small, eh?" He ignored the growl, the rocky rumble that emanated from this statement and instead swept Drusilla into his arms. She draped the tie around his neck and he fought a shiver of pleasure.

"I want to go and play with him," she wheedled. "Let's go and play - just for a moment - "

**No.**

Spike tightened his grip of her arms. "Now, look. You don't get to tell us what to do - "

**He is not needed. Dispose of him the normal way. And we must plan. We must be careful.**

Spike could feel Drusilla thrill under his fingertips. He knew she liked the power. He felt his face morph instinctively, felt the little kick of fangs sliding out and the the almost inaudible growl hum in his throat. He restrained himself.

"Alright. For now, we'll do some planning. But the doc stays. Dru's treat." He raised his chin and tried to look defiant. "You might want to get some results before you start throwing your weight around here. I've killed two Slayers: I don't impress easy." He turned back to Drusilla and stared at her hard, willed her to side back with him and to sense his control. She gripped the tie, some trinket she'd claimed from the doctor, and practically purred at him. Inside his head, he beamed.

"I promise you can have a little game with the doc after this, Dru."

"Promise?"

"He's _not_ going anywhere," Spike said, ignoring the glare of those eyes from the darkness. "He's all yours 'til we use him up. I promise."

* * *

"MmmmMMMMph!"

"Don't. Make. A sound. Understood?"

"Mmmnnm!" _Oh, very clever._ But he couldn't be blamed for not exactly thinking straight; one arm cut across his chest and the other was plastered over his mouth, and whoever the hell was behind him, holding him so tightly, felt much stronger than he was and apparently possessed the magical ability to walk through walls.

Wilson tensed as the arm squeezed over his ribs like a boa constrictor and tried to frantically emote with the back of his head that he wouldn't make a sound if the stranger would _just_ stop crushing the air from his lungs. The voice was deep, male, and so close to his ear he found himself straining to feel breath on his neck.

"If you make another noise and they find me here, we're both dead. Do you understand?"

Wilson was frozen with fear and it took him several painfully long seconds to remember to nod, eyes suddenly trained on the door, dreading to hear the click that would herald the return of that ungodly couple. "Ok. Just - just stay quiet. Whisper."

The hands left his body and Wilson's head spun as he simultaneously tried to bound away, twist around and suck in the deep breath his lungs had been craving. He found himself looking at a dark-haired man as ghostly-pale as his captor, even wearing the same type of black leather jacket. This observation immediately crushed any sense of relief he might have dared to feel. _Great. A new sparring partner._ His mind threw out an echo of Drusilla's caress as he realised his skin felt chilled from the man's grip. He half-opened his lips, unsure of what to say, hands unconsciously held out as he jerked against the ropes again and tried to put a little distance between them.

"Sorry if I scared you," the man said awkwardly.

Wilson stared. He should say something; preferably something that wasn't going to get him killed. "You're sorry," he ventured. "That's . . ok?" Maybe he wasn't going to die. The man stood up and cocked his head, listening for a few seconds.

"We're ok. Let's get out of here."

The thrill of -_ joy_ was too strong a word for it, it was more a sudden _relief _from the swarming fear that had gripped Wilson so far - had barely sounded in his chest before his insides shuddered again. The man standing over him pulled a knife from his pocket that gleamed, a vivid white flash reflected in Wilson's impossibly wide eyes, _Oh, God, -_

Luckily, the man must have sensed Wilson's sudden terror and stifled his yelp with another clap of his hand, shaking his head frantically. "No, no, it's for these," he said hurriedly, and he knelt down and began to hack through the ropes that bound Wilson's feet.

Wilson's heart stuttered back into life and he held out his hands eagerly. Within a minute the ropes snaked to the floor and he began to massage some life back into his legs. He heard a gasp, and somehow the man managed to turn even paler, eyeing his swollen wrists - beaded and smeared with blood - as if in pain himself. Wilson hurriedly tried to wipe them clean on his ruined shirt front.

"It's ok," he said, marvelling at how he was trying to reassure a man he had been convinced was going to slash his throat less than two minutes earlier. "It doesn't hurt that much."

This illicited something like a half-smile from the stranger, and he tore his eyes away from the bloodstains and leapt back to his feet. "Ok, can you stand yet? We have to hurry. It's nearly dawn already."

_When did my life start sounding so melodramatic?_ Wilson wondered as he crawled painfully to his feet. _Ow._ "I don't mean to be rude or anything but . . Who _are_ you? Do you know those - people?"

"My name's Angel," (Wilson couldn't control the bark of House's laughter that erupted inside his head), "and yeah, I do. We definitely don't want them to find us here. I'm guessing you know that, right?"

"They're totally insane, I know that much," he muttered, shaking some life into his left leg.

"What's your name?" Angel asked, with a sudden intensity that made Wilson raise his guard once more.

"James Wilson."

"Wilson? Huh." Angel frowned at him, as if he was somehow the wrong answer to a question he thought he'd solved.

"Did - did you expect me to be someone else?" he asked anxiously, hoping he hadn't thrown away the interest of his would-be rescuer. "I swear, I have nothing to do with Spike, or any of them, I just - I just woke up here, I promise . . ."

"Don't worry, that sounds like them. Let's go." Wilson dropped the obvious question, _So they do this often, then?!_ in favour of getting the hell out of the cell, but Angel's hand fell on his shoulder as he began to step quietly towards the door. "Not that way. The way I came in." Wilson looked at him blankly, to have his gaze directed up to a small window several feet above his head, the sacking drooping down from its top-most edge to reveal the single, glinting pin-prick of a star._ Does everyone I've met in the last 24 hours have the ability to magically drop in from impossibly high places?_

"Are you serious?" He stood back and stared at the small opening incredulously. He suddenly felt incredibly _stressed_, a work-word, a parking-ticket-word, but that was what it was as all his muscles bunched and he felt like screaming to Angel, _I'm not fucking Spider-man, just get me the hell out of here!_ He gulped down the hysteria and settled for snapping out the no-less stupid sounding: "I can't _fly_."

"I'll give you a boost."

"But then - "

"I'll be fine," Angel promised, and before Wilson knew what was happening the ledge was rushing up to meet him and he found himself frantically gripping the wall as he sat half-in, half-out of the cell. _Woah. What just happened?_ The worry of hearing the click of the door forced him to lower himself down and hang from the ledge, dropping gracelessly onto the concrete outside. With a flourish, Angel landed silently beside him and steadied him on his shaky legs. "You ok to go?"

"Yeah," Wilson muttered, glancing darkly back at the room he'd escaped from. Would he be able to run? His head was pounding again but the pain was nothing compared to his desire to put as much distance as possible between himself and that place. He wondered if House felt this stiff all the time.

_House . . ._

He froze, torn between the stab of worry and his desperate desire to just start running. "You don't think there's anyone else in there, do you? My friend - "

"Your friend is fine. He's with my friends. That's where we're going now." Angel saw the surprise that overtook Wilson's features. "I'll explain later, just trust me for now, ok? We have to go before the sun comes up." He glanced at the horizon anxiously.

"House - is fine?"

"I promise. The only puzzle is why you're still alive." Wilson's expression suggested that this might not be the most reassuring piece of news he could have hoped for. "Come on."

Wilson surrendered himself to this new plot twist - _why not? Makes as much sense as anything else this evening _- and staggered after Angel, over the empty tarmac and along the streets of the silent town, convinced that any second he would hear a yell from that room, and footsteps at his back, and see the eyes of that woman again, boring into him.


	8. Chapter 8

" . . . and it's important to remember that we have a lot of experience dealing with Spike and his, er, friends. Judging by his usual modus operandi, he isn't posing any immediate threat to your - to Mister Wilson. We've been following his movements closely, and I believe I'm close to - " Giles watched the doctor pace awkwardly back and forth across the tiny hotel room, jabbing his crutch into the carpet savagely. The librarian could feel a headache gathering force behind his temples and he pinched the bridge of his nose, an action that resulted in House administering a particularly brutal jab to the floor.

"Er, perhaps you'd like to sit down?"

"Doctor," House muttered, stopping suddenly and glowering at the carpet as if it had personally affronted him. "It's Doctor Wilson. And I'm not sitting down or having a cup of tea or a damn biscuit, so stop asking me."

"He'll be ok," volunteered Xander. "I know this looks bad, but it's always turned out ok up 'til now. This sort of thing actually happens to us more often than you might think."

"It's not happening to _you_, it's happening to Wilson! You're sure he's with this Spike?"

"I'm sure," said Buffy. "He left before I could stop him."

House continued to administer his best death-glare to the carpet as he fought a wave of misery that made his legs want to tremble. People accused him of being miserable - _Wilson_ thought he was miserable - but he wasn't, he was just pissed off a lot of the time (and mostly with good reason). This, now, was a different feeling; frightened, frustrated _misery_ as he remembered the ease with which Spike had thrown him across the room and the manic glint in those eyes as he'd punched Wilson to his knees. _He's a fucking nutjob._ Anything could have happened to Wilson by now, he could be half-dead, bleeding in some alleyway somewhere or floating face down in the river -

"I'm sorry. I should've stopped him." He glanced up and saw Buffy looking at him, concerned and miserable too, and felt a strange rush of affection for her.

"You couldn't have stopped him," he muttered. She was a kid, for Christ's sake, surely she didn't think he held that against her? "I'm not mad at you for that. You called the police?"

"No. We aren't calling the police," said Buffy calmly, as the other three nodded in unison around her. House narrowed his eyes. _Scratch that,_ _I_ am _mad at her._

"_What?_"

"No cops. They won't be able to help."

"You told me that he's still alive!"

"He will be - "

"Then we can fix this and get him away from that psychopath! We can _do_ something! You were just going to wait for a news report?!" The crutch whirled wildly past Willow's ear as House gestured, and she edged back on the table she was perched on.

"We can't call the police," she said softly. "You'll only be endangering whichever person decides to believe your story and goes to the warehouse." Willow didn't flinch as he stared at her, clearly trying to decide if she was speaking the truth. The mad crutch-twirling ceased, and he seemed to deflate as he scanned each of their earnest faces, searching for a sign that this was some sort of joke. Giles sighed.

"I'm sorry, Doctor House, but that, unfortunately, is the situation as it stands."

Buffy nodded. "No cops. It's just us."

"Yay," muttered Xander.

* * *

Some miles away, just as the sun was beginning to come up, a group of garbage men began their morning round. Today they noticed a pile of trash bagged up and waiting outside a warehouse which, if they had stopped to think about it, had appeared to be abandoned for the last few months. They didn't: it was a cold morning, and trash was trash. 

Deep within the walls, the corridors echoed with the sound of footsteps. Intent on finishing the job as soon as possible, the men didn't notice the sound of an un-oiled door squeal in protest as it was unlocked and pushed open inside. They were too busy piling the bags filled with rubbish (and what the unfortunate dump-owner, with a horrified squeal of his own, would later discover to be a body) into the truck. Moments later, a scream of rage echoed out of the dark confines of the building. It was a scream of such fury and ferocity that, had they heard it, doubtless for a minute their blood would have run cold. As it was, they heard nothing; the sound was drowned out by the revs of their engine and they pulled away, unheeding, into the wide, hazy glare of the sunrise.

* * *

House nodded, and for a moment the gang of four collectively un-tensed as he seemed to sink his head in acquiescence. Had they ever had the dubious pleasure of working with him, they would have interpreted the sudden and subtle straightening of his shoulders, the dangerous flash in his eyes, and the calculated chin-tilt as he raised his eyes again for what they were - the signs of inwardly summoning a new battle strategy. 

"You," he barked, pointing his crutch accusingly at Willow, "Not-Coma Girl, you mentioned a warehouse. You know where it is?"

Willow's eyes and mouth all turned into cartoonishly wide O's as she stared at the others sheepishly. "Oops . . . did I mention that?"

"Tell me, or I call the cops. That's where you think he is, isn't it?"

Xander snorted incredulously; "Uh, no way."

"You going to stop me?" House waved the crutch menacingly: "I only need one of these; the nurses at PPTH can spent the rest of today removing my spare one from an intimate area of your anatomy. Make sure you ask for Nurse Brenda; she'll be extra gentle when they come to yanking it out of your - "

"Oh, for goodness sake!" Giles tore off his glasses in exasperation. "Look, you can't go there. For reasons that elude my present understanding, we are acting in a way that will insure your safety, and what you are proposing is preposterous. You won't stand a chance."

"Well, what did you expect?" House shouted, "You thought I was going to agree with your let's-all-wait-for-a-call-from-the-morgue plan? That I'd just wait here? I'm practically aiding and abetting your lunatic friend if I just sit here doing nothing!"

"He's right," groaned Buffy. She hopped off the table and into the crossfire of the men's mutual glares. House made a _'well,_ _d'uh!'_ face; Giles opened his mouth in protest. "Chill, Giles. I'm not going to let him go." House squinted at her incredulously.

"You're not going to _let _me - "

"No. You're right, because I was right before: we can't just leave him. I'll go. You can stay here. And stop threatening my friends," she added testily, "they're helping you."

"What makes you think it would be safe for you if I won't be able to handle it?" he snapped back. "I don't need your overly-active guilty conscience weighing in because for some reason you think you should have been able to fight off a guy who nailed me and Wilson in two minutes!"

"You might not need it, but your friend does," Buffy said, grabbing a black bag off a chair and ignoring the sounds of protest coming from the others. "I'll make sure he gets back ok. It's the only way, guys."

"Fine. Your misplaced sense of girl-power is moving, if _ridiculous_, but I'm not staying here. I can help: I'll come too."

"No; I need these guys here, in case . . . to research some stuff; you'll stay with them."

House moved forward to follow her, and felt hands grip his biceps and drag him away from the girl. His hand slipped slightly on the unfamiliar crutch as he pulled against them. _Not this again_.

Buffy was practically at the door now, solemn and silent, and still these people were trying to keep him away from Wilson - _shit, Wilson, alone with that crazy bastard and they want to make me watch hotel cable and wait while he gets kicked to death in some warehouse somewhere like a bad Tarantino movie_ - and he wrenched against them because there was nothing else he could do, and why were people always trying to make him do nothing, trying to keep him safe and_ useless_?!

"I mean it," he snarled, looking the girl right in the eye and shaking _(God, why was he shaking?)_ "you thought I was pissy when you kept me away from _your _friend? _You don't want to ever see me again if you keep me away from mine._"

Buffy opened her mouth, but she didn't say anything.

Because it was then that the door slammed open and Wilson burst in.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thanks so much for the reviews everyone! They encourage me to keep updating regularly and it's nice to know that people are enjoying the story so far. As ever, let me know what you think - **

* * *

House stared. 

It was Wilson; panting, pale, eyes wide with confusion, looking more dishevelled than House had ever seen him, but undeniably Wilson nonetheless, alive and standing _right there_. Behind him was a dark haired man glancing furtively over his shoulder into the hotel corridor. Had House been paying any attention, he would have noted that the man was unnaturally pale and that wisps of smoke were emanating gently from his shoulders - details that normally would have commanded a healthy portion of his attention - but he wasn't. Couldn't give a crap. It was _Wilson_.

Wilson stared.

There was House, just like Angel had promised; apparently unharmed and, somehow completely unsurprisingly, embroiled in the middle of a hotel room brawl. He was centred in a scrum of angry-looking people with a stance that suggested full blown warfare was likely to erupt at any second. Unmistakable House.

In mutual astonishment, the two men stood fixed in each other's gaze for several seconds as everything seemed suspended, the room suddenly airless, the tableau taut and crystalline. Then came a soft click as Angel locked the door behind them, and the stillness was broken, and reality rushed back to House with all the delicacy of wrecking ball. There was a brief moment when all his muscles seemed to dissolve and the hands gripping his arms were all that were keeping him upright, and then he was pushing them off and grabbing the other crutch and bridging the three metre gulf to where Wilson stood, still blinking at him dazedly. "Christ, Wilson - "

Giles watched with interest as Wilson shook himself and managed to focus on the other doctor. House reached out, and stopped, leaving his hand hovering over Wilson's arm by centimetres, when he broke eye contact and murmured a soft, gruff, "Are you ok?" He continued to scan Wilson intently, half checking for injuries, half convincing himself that what he saw was real and not just some cruel illusion crafted by his concussion, Vicodin and the sheer stress of the last thirty minutes. Apparently satisfied that Wilson was all in one piece and not a figment of his imagination, House peered at his stunned expression again worriedly. "Wilson?"

"I . . ," Wilson floundered for a moment, seemingly speechless, gesturing helplessly before sighing and rubbing the back of his neck. "Uh, I'm fine." House slouched back, finally allowing relief to unclench his body. Then he frowned.

"No, you're freezing," he muttered accusingly, and started to pull off his (by now severely rumpled) jacket, while suddenly noticing the man standing behind his friend. "And you," he said, eyeing Angel critically as he handed Wilson his jacket, "are . . . Steaming?"

Angel patted his still-smouldering jacket as casually as possible and shrugged innocently, hoping to imply that this sort of behaviour was perfectly normal and not worthy of further scrutiny. He glanced past the doctors to where Buffy stood, poised as if to rush forwards towards the stranger, and House became aware that a similarly silent and intense exchange had been taking place over his shoulder.

"Hi, guys."

"Shouldn't you be lurking round a blood bank somewhere?" demanded Xander. House and Wilson blinked at him in unison.

"What the hell? What kind of people _are _you?!"

Angel shifted uncomfortably, ignoring House's appalled question. "I thought you could use a hand. I overheard what happened - "

"That the new term for _lurking _nowadays?" Buffy shot Xander a warning look.

" - and so I went down to the warehouse." Angel seemed to be speaking exclusively to Buffy, his tone fluctuating between angry and pleading. "You didn't think I knew what'd been happening lately? You'd have gone anyway, like you always do, and I couldn't let you risk it. Not now."

Buffy seemed to be restraining herself from something, locking whatever emotion it was inside herself and lifting her chin defiantly. "So you thought it'd be smarter to go without telling anyone and risk your own, - risk yourself instead?"

"Yes! Better me than you - "

"Oh please, it was _stupid_!"

Reassured that, despite the earlier scene, these people had no immediate plans to attack him or to resume wrestling with House, Wilson suddenly felt that he should contribute to the conversation:

"Um,_ I_ appreciated it."

House made a mental note to spare the dark-haired man when he finally got round to enacting revenge for the hellish evening he'd spent so far.

Wilson's brain finally caught up with his eyes as he recognised the blonde girl. "Hey!" He stepped towards her and broke into a disbelieving smile. "It's you, from . . . before, right?" Buffy flashed her own hundred-watt smile and House fought a little stab of annoyance. "You were - incredible! I've never seen anyone move like that." Buffy blushed slightly at the praise, and possibly because Angel was standing right there, responded by stepping slightly closer to the cute doctor and shrugging coyly.

"Oh, it's nothing, really - just mix up a bit of martial arts with some cheerleading moves, you know - "

"No, I really appreciate you coming to help me like that - "

House decided it was time to intervene. "Wilson, stop flirting. Three sets of alimony not enough for you?" Wilson winced and looked apologetically at Buffy, but House was gratified to notice the dark-haired man shoot Wilson an evil look while his back was turned. "We need to talk." House gestured to the kitchenette, and then turned to the others and said, with unabashed insincerity, "Please excuse us for a moment. Special doctors-only meeting."

As the others regrouped around the table, clearly preparing to have a 'special meeting' of their own (_Kidnappers with Conscience_? _Fruit Loops Anonymous_?) House herded Wilson across the invisible demarcation he had devised and leaned against the farthest countertop, which was still depressingly close to everywhere else in the tiny space. Wilson put his hands on his hips in exasperation.

"You know, for a few seconds there I was actually_ glad_ to see you?"

House basked in Wilson's glare and fought the urge to grin, engulfed in a wave of giddiness. For those awful minutes he'd thought - God knows what he'd thought - and here he was, as absurdly Wilson-esque as ever, solid and breathing and, to add that extra pinch of veracity, mildly pissed off with him. House still found himself resisting the urge to grab him by the shoulders just to confirm -

"What?" Wilson raked a hand through his hair in a vain attempt to tame his unkempt appearance and looked at him suspiciously. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" House poked the jacket Wilson still had clutched in his hands. "You going to put that on? At this point, it's really not going to have a significantly negative impact on your appearance. It's like stag night number two all over again." Wilson nodded in rueful agreement and started to slip it on, when House snatched his forearm and pulled it into the light.

"Hey - "

"_Jesus_, Wilson!" Any relief from this final confirmation of Wilson's presence was immediately quashed as House saw the vivid cuts encircling each wrist. He took Wilson's other arm and gently revolved his hand so the palm was facing upwards. The flesh was red and swollen, blood glistening in the still-open wounds. House swallowed and wondered at his sudden squeamishness. "That's gotta sting," he said quietly.

"It's ok," said Wilson, not meeting his eyes. House felt a kick of anger as he realised that Wilson was actually dumb enough to feel embarrassed. "Just a little tender."

House started rifling through the cupboards, in search of the ubiquitous crappy green first aid boxes they always had in places like this, while Wilson sank down onto a stool by counter, grateful that House wasn't going to push it. He_ really_ didn't feel like elaborating about the last few hours. The warmth was returning feeling to his muscles, and they were beginning to announce their displeasure at their recent treatment. _Loudly_. He laid his wrists on the counter-top with a wince, while House enthusiastically showered the contents of the aid box over the floor until he located the little role of gauze he wanted.

"What's with the crutches? Is your leg ok?" asked Wilson suddenly, trying to recall how laboured House's limp had been on the way into the kitchen. It was the sort of detail he normally noted and catalogued without conscious thought, but he was only now beginning to shake off the stunned feeling he'd carried since waking up in that awful room.

House carefully picked up Wilson's hand. "Antiseptic. Gonna sting . . . Well, there's still the matter of that - other side now - pesky infarction, but no new damage. Seems that," he turned his head around and shouted pointedly over his shoulder, " _Buffy_ may have _broken _my _cane_ between acts of juvenile delinquency."

"Her name's_ Buffy_?" House gave Wilson a look of confirmation that sought to suggest this fact alone was evidence of her insanity, while the girl in question glared over at him from across the room.

Buffy turned on her companions and eyed them accusingly. "So, who decided to share that factoid with the nice, good-tempered doctor?"

"Red-head," called back House, glancing apologetically up at Wilson as he moved to clean his second set of cuts. Wilson hissed in a breath as House dabbed at his wrist and reached for a wad of bandage. "Yeah, it was either the stutter, the blushing, or the looking right at her while you lied that gave it away," he added as Willow looked up indignantly. "_Subtle._"

"Look, I broke it dusting that other guy in the hospital, if that's any consolation," retorted Buffy. "Er. Metaphorically dusting that is."

" . . . Yeah. I thought for a moment there you went at him with the mop. Thanks for clarifying."

"_As in_, cane to the stomach, knee to the groin kind of thing." Wilson and House exchanged looks, impressed.

"Oh. Well, in that case . . ". House nodded at Buffy and turned back to wrapping the gauze. "It's the way he'd have wanted to go."

A minute more and the bandaging was complete. "We'll have to leave our gaping head-wounds for another time, unless you want to flip a coin for the one band-aid. Crappy kit."

"Thanks." Wilson looked at the little white bracelets in resignation. He felt ridiculous. He finally shrugged the jacket on to cover them up and started to examine his reflection dolefully in the microwave door.

"So, when did you and _Buffy_ - " House savoured the name in all of its perky improbability, " - get to be bestest buddies?"

"Hey, I'm not the one on first name terms with her." Wilson started trying to rub off a smudge from his jaw line.

"I'm pretty sure that's a bruise, wunderkind."

"_Ow,_ - shut up. She came in, just after you got knocked out. Seriously, the girl fights like Xena."

"Yet tragically without the same wardrobe choices."

"_Please,_ you're old enough to be her father."

"Same goes for you, but I notice that didn't stop you turning on the Wilson charm."

"Is it too hard for you to imagine that I might actually be grateful to her?"

"Yeah, she did a great job of stopping Spike getting his paws on you." House slapped his head in mock-remembrance. "Oh no, _wait _- "

"For a girl half your size and a fraction of your age, I'd say the fact she even tried is pretty impressive."

House thwacked the microwave with his crutch. "Would you stop _preening_? Pay some attention to our hosts for a minute." He nodded towards the whispering huddle across the room. "What do you think?"

"Ok, _fine,_ she's very attractive. Extremely attractive. Happy now?"

"Nope, but well done for finally admitting that you have a problem." Wilson glared; House continued undaunted. "What do we think? The red-head is practically Lazarus, the Brit talks like he swallowed an etiquette manual, Blondie is apparently a prize-fighter and the other two are clearly love rivals. This shedding any light on our current situation to you?"

"I have absolutely no idea what's going on. I'm still rooting for the 'this is a dream' theory, but that's become depressingly unlikely. The tall guy is called Angel, if that helps," volunteered Wilson, noting House's snort of laughter with satisfaction. "He's also freakishly athletic. What else do you know?"

"Well, I was going with the 'younger guy and Buffy are an item' theory, but that got blown out of the water when your guy came in - I guess he could be with the red-head - or maybe Giles has a thing for the naughty schoolgirl lo- "

"I don't mean their group dynamics, I mean _who the hell are they?!_ You must know something to have come to their hotel room."

"Nope, 'fraid not. I just woke up here. I know we're somewhere in New Jersey. That's as far as I'd gotten."

Wilson glanced back nervously at the five strangers. Even Angel's status as his timely rescuer was beginning to tarnish under such suspicious circumstances. "They just - brought you here while you were unconscious? Is that why you were fighting them?"

"No, we worked out those issues earlier in the session." Deciding Wilson was sufficiently recovered, he nudged him off the stool and sat down. "They wouldn't let me call the police to report you missing. Said it was instant death for whichever cop followed the tip." House watched Wilson carefully, trying to gauge whether the others had simply been melodramatic or speaking the truth. Wilson just shrugged.

"I guess that's possible," he said flatly.

"Shame I didn't think to call Tritter, huh?" _No reaction._ Wilson must be shaken; that should have triggered off one of his sententious little tics like a match dropped in a petrol tank. _This is not good. _House bravely waited out the silence and studied Wilson's carefully blank expression.

"So -- they were keeping you away from the phone?"

"They were keeping me away from information. They let slip they knew where you were and wouldn't tell me. They were going to send warrior-princess over there instead on some undercover mission." Wilson looked bemused.

"And you were going to do what when you broke free? _Follow_ her?" House glared at him.

"I was thinking more of a beer run." Wilson grinned, and then sighed, and stared at the floor in a way that managed to be reproachful and grateful and awkward and touched all at the same time. He rubbed a hand over his face; a gesture that House had long since come to dread. It always acted as a prelude to one of Wilson's Serious Moments. Apparently some of Wilson's habits were too deeply ingrained to be shaken out of him. House was annoyed to realise that he was alarmingly relieved by this discovery.

"House, that's . . . You knew it was -- you shouldn't have - "

"Well I didn't, did I? Shut up and give me a pill. Right pocket."

House swallowed the Vicodin with theatrical relish as he turned to look warily at the others, and decided to poke a little harder._ Just to be safe._ "Strange women, an intolerably bland hotel room - this is cozy, huh? You must feel right at home."

Wilson gave him one of his patented long-suffering looks. "And the fact that everyone in the room seems to want to kill you must be putting you at your ease."

House smirked. _That's more like it. _"Practically a normal Saturday night for the both of us."

"Yeah . . . Let's get the hell out of here so I can start repressing that this ever happened."

"You don't want to ask them what the hell's been going on? No way are they getting off that easy." Wilson's eyes started to widen in panic.

"Oh, no, House - "

"You don't think we deserve a damn explanation?"

"You don't think we deserve to get out of this while we're still somehow in one piece?!"

Across the room, Buffy nodded to her little group in confirmation of some private agreement and turned around to face the two doctors - one of whom, she noticed, had already begun edging out of the kitchen towards the door. "Uh, guys?"

She watched as the one she had labelled ' the cute doctor' froze like a rabbit caught in the headlights, while the other, filed under 'cranky bastard' narrowed his eyes and watched her appraisingly. She glanced back at the others, steeled herself, and gave them both her sweetest smile.

"I kinda think we need to have a talk. No?"


	10. Chapter 10

The room was still ringing to the sound of Drusilla's screams. The wire chandelier lay twisted in the corner, like a bleached ribcage in an expanse of empty desert. Spike could feel those eyes burning into the back of his head, and cursed them, and cursed the doctor, and paced the room. Drusilla had not been in a state of such fury for months. It confirmed that which he had secretly feared; she had planned to turn the doctor. After the procedure, or perhaps sparing him entirely, she had been imagining that moment of capture and possession, of watching him wake up to be hers, one of them, forever. He snarled into the darkness, and kicked the wall savagely.

**This loss was of no true consequence, other than to bring your carelessness into the light. Now you shall be more careful. You must bring me the Slayer.**

Spike whirled round in fury, spitting his answer to the shadows. "She _wants_ the doctor! You heard her! She wants nothing more than that damn doctor now!" He paused, and stared mournfully at the door, still swinging from Dru's dramatic exit. "And we need a doctor. Nothing's changed!"

**Abandon this plan!** The force of the order made Spike step back in shock, shaken despite himself at what he had unleashed.

"That's what we wanted," he muttered angrily, "it's the only reason you're even here, is that -- "

**Your motives do not matter. I am here. I breathe again, and I demand the Slayer, and an end to this foolishness.**

"We can do both, then."

**You desire his presence here no more than I do. Use the forces I have given you to bring me the Slayer. There may only be one target. I shall watch you prepare.**

Spike looked at the darkest corner of the room, where those eyes were suddenly outshone by a green light, a vivid slit in the blackness in which vague shapes seemed to be forming and gathering substance.

He couldn't win. If he defied . . . It, and summoned the doctor, he would have to deal with It's fury and Drusilla would have her new pet. Even imagining it brought hot, bubbling jealousy into this stomach and made his knuckles whiten.

But to bring the Slayer, when he had sworn the doctor to Drusilla, would mean no doctor to work for him, and Drusilla would know that he had lost, that his power had bent to the force of another. It was intolerable. And he could feel It in the corner (_why, why did these things never do as they were told?!_) watching him, waiting to hear his order, knowing instantly if he chose to disobey. He stared, feeling a sick dread swirl inside, as three shapes solidified and stepped out of the glowing window, pulsating with a demonic light of their own. He was utterly cornered. There was no way he could -

But he was going about this all wrong! What Dru wanted, what that thing wanted: Spike felt a smile beginning to unfurl and gleam in the shadows. _Brilliant. I should put myself first more often,_ he thought in delight, _when it always means I win every hand._ The smile tugged wider, and fangs glinted, his eyes glittering in the unearthly light.

The three figures stepped towards him, and Spike prepared himself for the lie. "All right then. Let's do it. Ready when you are, Boss."

* * *

House grinned victoriously. "Perfect! I know Doctor Wilson is especially eager to throw a little light on our current situation." He started dragging the stool to where the others were all seated, apparently oblivious to the withering glare burning into the back of his neck.

"Perfect isn't _exactly _the term I would use," countered Wilson through gritted teeth. House shrugged.

"Oh, come on, you love catching up with all your ex-patients. Now's your chance." The barb Wilson was preparing in return died in his throat as he saw Willow smiling at him, and he remembered seeing her lying in the hospital bed, and House's account of her escape from the ward. Somehow, in the midst of all the confusion, he hadn't made the connection.

"That's incredible," Wilson muttered. _And damn it, it_ was _incredible, which meant that . . ._ Wilson's gaze moved from the strangers, to the tempting proximity of the door, to meet the blue flash of House's eyes, . . . _it means that we're not going anywhere for a while._ He dropped into a spare chair with a resigned thump. Even if the five of them all started wielding chainsaws at them, House would still be powerless to drag himself away. Wilson was almost impressed that he had managed as long as he had in the kitchen without succumbing to his obsessive need to assemble the puzzle. _There is no escape. I am actually, in this hotel room, surrounded by these total strangers . . . About to perform a differential diagnosis,_ he realised sourly.

Giles cleared his throat, and leaned forward in an engagingly conspiratorial stance. "Doctor Wilson - we need to know exactly what happened while you were with Spike."

"What?"

"What!?" added House, in a reassuring show of solidarity. "In case you hadn't realised, I was pretty much implying that _you _would be listening to _our _questions, seeing as you dragged us into this chaos. It's answer time."

"But first, we need to know about Spike. I'm sure you appreciate he is a very dangerous individual. We really need all the information about him that we can lay our hands on." Giles' smile reminded House of the same bloody-minded pleasantry with which the pharmacist had refused so many of his prescriptions. It said clearly, _I'm going to win this conversation, and I've been nice about it so far, but that isn't going to last long, so you might as well give up._ He opened his mouth to argue, and then realised that he too was curious about that particular question, and leaned back, turning in his seat to eye Wilson expectantly. Wilson visibly flinched at this treacherous reversal and gaped at him.

"What?! What about coma-- I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"Willow."

"What about Willow and the mystery cure?! Suddenly I'm the one who has to suffer through your interest?"

"We'll get on to that other stuff later," said House equably, watching Wilson squirm. Despite his nonchalant gaze, he was poised to pull the plug on this interrogation if it proved to be too uncomfortable for his friend, but not without seeing _how_ uncomfortable it made him first.

"Fine." Wilson crossed his arms and turned back, directing his answer pointedly at Giles. "I woke up in a locked room. I don't know where, but apparently you all do." He swallowed, and found it was difficult to get his tone to sound as dismissive as he had been aiming for. He was strongly aware of House watching him out of the corner of his eye. "I was . . . Tied up, and then Spike and this other woman came in, broadcast their insanity, left, and Angel showed up and untied me."

"Drusilla?"

"Er, yes . . . You know her too? She was even stranger than he was."

"What did they say?"

Wilson frowned. "They wanted me to diagnose her. Said they wanted a doctor and that they had a job for me later."

"A different job to Drusilla?"

"Yeah . . . I got the impression that was more like a test." House sat up in interest.

"What did you diagnose? What symptoms did she have?" Wilson glared at him incredulously.

"She was mentally unstable, I don't remember what I diagnosed her with! I was slightly distracted from the medical side of things by the fact I was tied up next to her violent psychopathic boyfriend!" House had the grace to look chastened, and Wilson resumed his pose opposite Giles. "Any other little details you want me to share?" he snapped.

"What about Dru? Did she say anything?" asked Buffy. Wilson heard a sudden ringing in his ears as he recalled her chill caress. _Can I play with it now?_ He desperately hoped he wasn't blushing.

"She didn't make much sense. I think she was high on something," he said finally. He chose his next words carefully. "She was wearing my lab coat and she seemed, um, . . . rather taken with me," - and now he was looking _anywhere _but House's face as he watched them all absorb that information. The dark-haired boy winced sympathetically; clearly they were all acquainted with the woman's weird behaviour.

"Is that everything?" pressed Buffy.

"Isn't that enough?" He shrugged and pinched his nose. "That's everything I can think of. Oh, and she must have taken my tie as well."

House remained carefully expressionless. "A loss we all feel deeply, I'm sure."

Wilson raised his eyes to glower at him, but was disarmed by the surprisingly soft look on House's face, and felt suddenly overwhelmed by vague burst of gratitude for something he couldn't really identify.

"Well, thanks for sharing," said Buffy. "That sort of stuff will really help us out for when we next have to deal with him." She treated Wilson to another warm smile and Angel bristled behind her.

"Why on earth would you choose to deal with that couple again?" asked Wilson. His natural sense of chivalry had already been thrown somewhat off-balance by their encounter in the hospital, and now he couldn't stop himself from trying to dissuade her from whatever she seemed to be planning. "They're clearly highly unstable, violent, dangerous - probably drug addicts - "

"Speaking of which." House interrupted him with a rattle of his pill bottle. "You're gonna need to stop by a pharmacy pretty soon. Running low here."

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to stay and chat; me enabling you is going to have to take a back seat for the moment. We have more important matters to discuss, remember?" House deliberately matched his glare, and popped a Vicodin into his mouth, smirking defiantly at Wilson's grimace. "You just had one! I'm not leaving you here to go and get a fix for your drug habit!"

House tipped another into his hand. "Can't call the police this time, Wilson. They won't let you."

"Fine. Have fun detoxing in a motel room for the next forty-eight hours. I suddenly can't remember where my prescription pad is." House paused with a second pill in the centre of his palm. "Or how to spell 'Vicodin'."

Defeated, House dropped the pill back into the bottle and gave it a pointed shake."On the way back." Wilson nodded.

"What the hell kind of doctors are you?" House grinned at Xander's question.

"Very good ones. And now, our turn. I want to know the cure, how you got it, where you got it, and what the hell the deal is with your homicidal friends." He turned the laser-beam of his stare onto Buffy, who fidgeted for a moment, and then seemed to do a double take.

"Wait - your neck - " House rolled his eyes.

"Is this a pathetic attempt at deflecting the question? 'Cause we're not going anywhere until you answer it." Wilson affirmed this with a half-hearted nod. But the others were all exchanging looks now, with what seemed an unwarranted amount of excitement.

"Who do you think they - I mean, how did you get that scar?"

House could sense Wilson protectively begin to form a deflecting question of his own, and decided to cut to the chase. "I got shot," he said shortly, ignoring Wilson's surprised look. Xander's forehead crinkled:

"Seriously, what kind of doctors -- "

"Answer. The question," snarled House, patience wearing thin. Buffy held up her hands appeasingly.

"Ok, ok . . . Well, in that case. We're from California. Place called Sunnydale."

"Figures," snorted House.

"We followed Spike here because we knew - we know he's been planning something, apparently something that involved doctors. That's why we brought you with us. It wasn't safe at the hospital."

"Thanks so much for the protection." House rubbed his hand pointedly over the marks of his recent concussion. "How do you know Spike?"

Buffy looked at the others desperately. "We, um, - we all -- "

"We're in a gang," inserted Xander. Wilson saw his own incredulity mirrored in Giles and Willow's expressions.

"A gang," echoed Willow, sounding slightly stunned.

"Yeah. Rival gangs," finished Buffy.

"We're actually surprisingly gangster," supplied Xander. House turned to Giles, daring him to agree.

"_You _are in a gang?" Giles managed a strained looking smile and a strangled noise that might have been a 'yes'.

"We're age-inclusive," said Xander happily. "And we normally hang out in a library. Just so you know."

The sheer enormity of the lie hung in the air for a moment while Wilson and House exchanged glances. "Suddenly, my image of Foreman's childhood just isn't as cool as it was," murmured House. He leaned forward to snatch the black bag off the floor and waved it accusingly at them. "What about the syringe?"

"We just read about it in a book," muttered Buffy. "We had some lying around, thought it might work . . . I don't know what else to tell you." They looked at each other in a silent stalemate. Giles, recovered from the shock of his new identity, cleared his throat and broke the silence.

"I think that's all there is to be said, really." House drummed his fingers on the bag and looked unimpressed. "There really isn't anything more we can tell you. And about you leaving -- " Wilson's head jerked up in alarm, " -- that might not be the best idea, for the present time."

"What?"

"We've been talking . . . And we have a plan -- "

"Oh, _good_," growled House. "Tell me, does this new plan involve either of us being tied up, beaten up or concussed?"

"We think it might be wisest if we all stay here for a while. Just while Spike is still hunting for a doctor. I promise, if you stay here with us, you'll be perfectly safe - "

"A man who kept me hostage in my own damn hospital wants to play trust exercises?! Go to hell." House stood up furiously, the bag falling open on the floor at his feet. "Come on, Wilson. Let's get out of here."

"It really would be better if you stayed," tried Buffy, although she didn't look particularly keen as House glared down at her. "We know how Spike works, and - "

"_Exactly!_ You know Spike, and you want us to be buddies? _My_ friend is a doctor who saves lives; _your _friends are vicious psychopaths who beat the crap out of people! Forgive me if I'm not keen to stick around in your social circle."

Wilson glanced at Angel. "Can you call us a cab? And - " he patted his pockets, flushing slightly, " - lend us some money?"

"Sure," sighed Angel. "They're not staying Buffy, give it up." She shrugged, surprisingly calm.

"Then I hope you both get back ok."

"We'll wait outside," muttered House, and he swung his way out of the door without so much as a backward glance. Wilson stared at the five faces, all downcast and guilty-looking, and at the small wad of notes being pressed into his hand. "Uh, thank you. If you call in, I can repay . . . " He stepped back towards the door. "I'm glad you're feeling better," he managed finally, smiling weakly at Willow. "It was - interesting to meet you all." And he shut the door behind him, and they heard the furious hiss of whispers move down the empty corridor, away from them.

There were a few moments of silence, and then Angel nodded. "I've got the stuff. Giles, can we take your car?"

"Yes, go ahead. It's probably works better this way. They can't be deliberately unco-operative, at least. We need to stay here, do some research. It's getting close now." He threw the keys to Angel, and nodded at Buffy. "Go. Be careful. Follow them."

* * *

Unaware of the battered car trailing behind them, the two doctors slumped exhaustedly in the back of the black cab as morning commuters started shuffling out of their front doors. "I have absolutely no idea where we are," muttered Wilson. "I hope we have enough cash." The cabbie cast a wary glance in the mirror.

"Everybody lies," snorted House furiously. "But at least they normally make some sort of effort to hide it! What the hell was that gang crap about? Even _they _didn't buy it."

"Made a good visual though. Especially the older guy." House nodded in amused agreement, scanning the road for an open pharmacy. He planned on spending the next 24 hours sprawled over his bed, and the joy of that plan strongly relied upon him having a refill to put on his nightstand. Wilson yawned hugely beside him, already practically asleep.

"You better stay at mine," he decided out loud. "No more hotels tonight, right?"

"Thanks," murmured Wilson groggily. House spent the next five minutes watching Wilson's head slide progressively closer to his own shoulder, nudging him off when gravity finally won the day. "Huh?"

"You fell asleep." House glanced down at his leg, then at his dishevelled friend, and summoned some inner heroism he was irritated to discover still existed. "You want to take the bed tonight?" In front of them, the cabbie shook his head as some private bet was lost.

"What?" Wilson managed to sit up straight and stared at him in amazement. "Are _you_ alright?"

"I'm fine," he snapped. "Just decided I've probably had a marginally better evening than you have." Wilson tilted his head in agreement.

"Probably. And no, but thanks. If this isn't going to turn out to be a dream, I want some normality to cling onto." He frowned, and looked at his friend's scowling profile as he hammered on the glass divide.

"Pharmacy! Pull over."

"I've got to say House . . . I'm kind of surprised you didn't stay any longer. Not that I'm not incredibly glad that you didn't, but . . . I really didn't think you'd leave without an answer. Still. At least now, it's all over."

House reached into his pocket, and pulled out two bottles, clutching one of them triumphantly. It was heavy glass, and half-filled with a sluggish green mixture. "Like I'd let it go that easily," he scoffed. "People never pay attention when they're busy trying to make up lousy stories to cover their asses. These guys didn't even zip up their rucksacks properly."

House smiled, a wide smile that for a moment eclipsed the fatigue and pain on his face and reminded Wilson of a kid set loose in a sweet shop. He tossed the yellow plastic bottle to Wilson, and held the mixture up to the light. "Now go get me my pills. Gonna need all my energy for tomorrow. We take this to the lab, and we solve the case. _Then_ it's all over."


	11. Chapter 11

**Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed my story so far. I haven't got as many reviews for the last few chapters, so I don't know if this is moving in an unpopular direction. Feedback and concrit is always welcome! Helps me to write better - anyway, here is part 11:**

* * *

No matter how hard Spike fixed his gaze on the three figures standing before him, they appeared blurry, as if fine wires were trembling constantly beneath their waxy skin. It was part of their purpose: an observer, if asked, would say _yes, they were men_, but ask them for a closer description and their memory would fail. There was no twist of feature by which to identify them, and their faces would seem to melt and slide under the most watchful stare. Already, Spike was getting a headache and looking forward to sending the drones after their target, and as far away from his own eyesight as possible. He rubbed his forehead, and three pairs of eyes, flat and expressionless as coins, followed the movement with predatory fascination. 

It was all about the physical with these creatures. Names and faces meant nothing to brains that small and malevolently focused: _precision_ was the key. Ask them to bring you the vampire slayer, and you might end up with any one of the hundreds of people who'd ever sharpened a stake. You had to be _perfect_ when you made the instructions, trap your prey by a web of their own actions that no other individual could have performed. If the creatures didn't have the tenacity of pit bulls, the strength of sumo-wrestlers, and a total lack of imagination that resulted in total obedience, they would hardly be worth the forward planning.

They suited Spike for two reasons. Firstly, anyone who had spent as much time as he had trying to get communicate with a mind as intriguing, if admittedly skewed, as Drusilla's, had an immediate advantage in negotiating around the creatures' unnerving capacity to misinterpret anything remotely human and colloquial. Secondly, they provided perfect cover for the cock up he was about to make.

The thing lurking in the shadows, monitoring him still, wanted the Slayer, and Dru wanted her 'pet' to play with (and after the morning he's had, Spike will _break_ the dark-eyed man to _pieces_ if he ever sees him again), but all Spike had ever wanted was a doctor. Making sure that he was speaking within the hearing range of the shadowed watcher, he leant forward and spoke clearly, using the gothic inflections and pig-headed pedantry that was all these creatures understood.

"You _will not kill_ the one I send you after. But you _will _capture them, and bring them to us, here, unresisting. You may hurt them if it's necessary," (three pairs of hands twitched in anticipation), "but we need them _alive_. Bring no one else, and let no one else see you. No one." Behind him, he could feel those eyes narrow in anticipation, and he fought the urge to break into a grin. He schooled his face into a grave expression, and gave his words as much ceremonial pomp as he felt he could safely get away with. "I saw our brother in blood, Michael, slain at the hospital, and I saw the shard that did it. This is your task: bring us the provider of that which killed him. _Bring us the one who's weapon pierced his heart_."

He stepped back, mentally applauding his own flair for drama.

"Well, go on then!" he prodded, clapping his hands together and stepping back from their weird, dead-eyed stares. "Time's a-wasting! You've got until . . . midnight tomorrow. I'm a reasonable man."

Three pairs of eyes seemed to fog over as they _reached out_ with those razor-sharp minds. They sought out their prey, following the backwards path of consequence and cause, unravelling the trails that still hung in the air and mapped out the actions of the past, invisible to all but these hunters. The shuttered eyes snapped open again, and those black discs suddenly appeared to have acquired what before had seemed unthinkable: an expression. They looked . . . _hungry._

They pivoted in unison, and marched out of the room under Spike's approving gaze. "Looks like my work here is done," he drawled, grinning with a show of teeth that would have looked equally at home on a tiger. Already, they were following a scent. They had found their target.

At that exact moment, several miles away, as the unkind result of having three demon minds suddenly locking onto his own with a laser-like intensity, the target was sent crashing to the floor with a shout.

* * *

House shifted his leg gingerly, and couldn't help letting out a little high-pitched gasp of pain. One minute he'd been groping his way back from the bathroom, and then - then there'd been a moment when it had felt like every inch of his body was being gripped in a vice, and his mind whited out in some internal explosion, and now he was sitting on the floor, several gruelling metres away from his bed, and his leg was yowling in fury at the fact it had just smacked into the ground. He rubbed his thigh in a desperate effort to appease the cramping muscles, and tried to shake off the sensation that he was still falling. _What the hell was that?!_ In that second of eye-popping pressure it had felt as if he had been _exposed _somehow: pushed onto the stage of a packed auditorium and blinded by his own spotlight.

"House? Did you hear something? -- "

He heard a creak from the corridor, and then the door slowly opened and he was blinded again as someone switched the lights on. His vision cleared and he saw Wilson looking rumpled in the doorway, blinking against the brightness, hair sticking up wildly. Wilson scanned the empty bed with the slightly unfocused look of those who aren't entirely awake, and then finally located House on the floor in the corridor, looking sheepishly up at him.

"_House?_"

"Hey."

"What happened? Did you hurt yourself or something?" Wilson managed to walk in a straight-ish line towards him, staggering to a halt at his feet and staring down blankly. _Wilson is really _not_ a morning person,_ House noted in amusement.

"I'm fine," he lied, as convincingly as the shards of pain in his leg would allow him. At least his brain didn't seem to be on the verge of imploding again any time soon, so it wasn't a complete untruth. He tried to ignore Wilson's searching look and instead began contemplating the painful task of getting up.

" . . . Ok," said Wilson, managing to sound both utterly unconvinced and still half-asleep. He rubbed his eyes, thus missing House roll his.

"Jesus, no wonder you take so long getting ready in the mornings. You always like this when you wake up?"

"I'm tired," said Wilson, (somewhat petulantly, House felt, seeing as _he_ was currently the one freezing his ass off on the floor,) but before he could bitch, Wilson was kneeling down next to him in a move House hadn't seen for almost five years. He meant to push him away with his arm, but when Wilson crouched down House noticed a bruised, pink band of skin around his ankle as his pyjama leg hitched up, and without realising it his arm was suddenly around Wilson's shoulders and then, automatic from all that long-ago practise, he was leaning into and pushing off from his friend's weight, and back on his feet.

He swayed for a moment and then gripped the wall, and Wilson stepped away at his nod. "How long, exactly, were you planning on sitting there? Why didn't you call me?" House made sure Wilson caught the eye roll this time.

"Oh, _relax_. I hadn't been on my ass ten seconds before you came running through the door like Lassie." Wilson looked slightly mollified, and wandered over to the crutches, which had been flung unceremoniously at the foot of the bed at the earliest opportunity. "Don't bother," said House. He'd be damned if he'd use those things again while he still possessed the ability to crawl. It was possible, he reflected, that with a massive amount of discomfort he could get to the bed under his own steam and spend the next two hours lying awake in bed, cursing his own obstinacy. "Dress cane in the closet. Gimme."

He normally wouldn't like to broadcast the fact that he couldn't cross such a short distance unaided, especially when he technically _could_, but it was down to pride vs. pain here and the only audience was Wilson, who was one of the few people who'd understand the distinction between _want _and _need_. Wilson passed him the cane and then moved out of the way, noting the flash of pain that crossed House's face whenever he put any weight on his right leg. "You already went, right?," he murmured. The bathroom suddenly seemed a long way away.

"Mission accomplished," announced House, and in five agonizing steps he was at the bed. He would have liked to fling himself down dramatically and just pass out, but the time for theatrics had died at the moment he went plummeting onto the hall floor, so he contented himself with sinking down onto the covers and lifting his leg up in relief.

"So what happened? You trip over something?" _I have no idea what happened_, House thought uneasily. Some small part of his head was still buzzing uncomfortably. _But it felt like someone just applied 500 volts to my frontal lobe and then beat the crap out of me._

"Must have," was all he could think to say. "Probably a nice memento from the time that maid of yours _waxed the floors_." Wilson looked totally unrepentant in the face of his scowl.

"Hey, it's a nice thing to do. For most people."

"Yeah, for most people. She just wanted to see a rendition of 'Cripples on Ice'." Wilson grinned and headed back towards the door. "Thanks," House added as an afterthought. Wilson turned round, and House gestured vaguely at the hallway. "For the lift. Sorry if I woke you up."

"House . . . I'm probably insane to say this to you, and I know you'll use it against me for the rest of my life, but - " Wilson looked at the ceiling for a moment, as if seeking divine inspiration, or more likely just to avoid House's eyes. "In a situation like this, just, . . . you can put yourself first." House smirked.

"What else do I ever do?" He sank back into the pillows. "'Night, Wilson."

"'Night, House."

* * *

Parked two doors down from apartment 221B, Buffy and Xander sat cramped in the front of Giles' tiny car, picking mournfully at the remains of the Doritos and watching the approach of a nondescript man moving down the street. Buffy sat up warily as he paused before the very doorway they were watching.

"Oh God, they can't possibly have ordered _more_ pizza," groaned Xander bitterly. "This is the last time I come on a stake-out without my wallet."

"They had a rough night. Slaying makes me hungry," said Buffy equably, staring as two more men rounded the corner and moved to join the other. They congregated before the steps of the building, and looked for a moment as if they planned on going to the door, when the last man swivelled his head and met her own stare head on. Expressionless, the man turned back to his companions, and they continued walking down the street in eerie synchrony."That was weird," muttered Buffy.

"What?" Xander was rooting through the glove box in desperate hope of finding sustenance.

"Those guys."

"Nothing! Not even _mints_! What kind of cold machine is Giles?!" He sat back up and kicked the car so hard the entire framework shook around them. "Anyway, all the things we've seen, all the crazy vamps and demons and giant super bugs, three guys walking down the street at 9pm classifies as weird _how _exactly?"

"They stopped, right outside his place. Like they were going to go in."

"Whatever. We're only signed on for Spike and Dru; we have no jurisdiction to stop any other stalkers he might have picked up."

The back door swung open and Angel hopped inside the car. "Back way is all clear. They got in, ordered in, and I'm pretty sure they've been sleeping it off ever since. Probably not going anywhere 'til tomorrow morning."

"Nice work if you can get it," groused Xander. Buffy yawned and rolled her shoulders against the car seat.

"Then I guess we aren't going anywhere either. If Spike wants Doctor Wilson, we go where he goes."

"You reckon they live together?" mused Xander.

"Could be," said Angel, a little too eagerly, recalling Buffy's earlier doe-eyed smile to the doctor.

"No way. Who'd live with Doctor Cranky-pants?" She snorted and reclined the seat, staring idly at the now empty street. "Not even Spike would want to touch him."

* * *

It was an impressive feat to sleep for nearly twenty-four hours, but between them the two doctors nearly pulled it off. House had to get up for a few laps after the first eight hours, and Wilson woke briefly to forage in the fridge, but otherwise they lay oblivious as the day seeped into the night, and with it the strange sensations that had gripped House seemed to fade.

Under normal circumstances, a seven a.m. rising was something House wouldn't even contemplate, but the alluring scent of Wilson's pancakes and the imminent threat of bed sores were enough to tempt him into the kitchen. The green bottle was burning a hole through his nightstand. Today - the lab, some tests, an _answer_. He speared his pile of pancakes with a fork and almost felt a smile coming on.

"You look unnervingly chipper." House shrugged, and deftly beheaded the top of Wilson's pile and transferred it to his own. "Hey! I _made_ those!"

"I'm just putting myself first," he said plaintively, between mouthfuls. Wilson glared at him.

"Thank you. That's, what, half a day? A whole twelve hours before you've made me regret I ever said anything."

"I know how you like to be right," House grinned. "Come on, eat up. People to cure, tests to run."

"It's not even half-past seven. If you get into work this early you'll give Cuddy a heart attack."

"Added bonus." He stabbed the air with his knife, trying to convey some sense of urgency. Wilson looked unmoved.

"I'm eating my damn pancakes, and then I'm having a shower. I feel like having a _relaxing_ day, for some reason."

"_Another_ one? You've spent the last twenty-four hours practically comatose," House grumbled. Nonetheless, it was more than an hour later when the two doctors stepped out into the chill morning air and pulled away down the street.

Two minutes later, a battered car pulled out from behind a parked van and trundled down the road after them.

It wasn't for another ten minutes until three figures emerged and started walking same in the direction as the doctors and demon-hunters. Three abreast, they followed the trail, through the city and towards Princeton-Plainsboro hospital, moving with the relentless and regular strides of automatons. _Technically_, their deadline was midnight. But unfortunately, rather like the man they hunted, these were the kind of creatures who _really_ enjoyed their work.


	12. Chapter 12

**Thanks again to my reviewers: you are all awesome. Sorry for the delay, had a week in bed with the flu, but here is the next part:**

* * *

Without even raising her eyes from her paperwork, Cuddy's forehead creased into the automatic grimace that only House's distinctive step could induce. It was the facial equivalent of donning battle armour, and her voice was like steel when she spoke.

"Whatever it is, _I don't want to know._ Jameson wants your head on a platter for your little stethoscope prank on Thursday, somebody smashed up eight _hundred _dollars worth of equipment in a private room this weekend, and Legal want to know how an apparently comatose patient managed to sign herself out of here A.M.A. in the middle of the night without a single member of staff noticing."

"That is admirably stealthy," agreed House. Cuddy snapped her head up when she heard Wilson clear his throat, and add tentatively: "Er, we might actually be able to help you with that."

Her frown was replaced with a look of puzzlement, and a fatal sinking feeling, as she saw the two doctors. They were standing side by side, Wilson staring at the carpet with an expression of genuine interest, and House gazing at the ceiling in studied innocence. Wilson, though impeccable as always, had nonetheless failed to disguise the nasty cut tracing his hairline and the suggestions of bruising she could glimpse on his neck. House's predictable state of dishevelment was only emphasised by a similar injury. She suddenly felt like a Headmistress who had gone for a pleasant walk in the playground, only to be confronted by two boys standing next to a smashed window, wearing baseball mitts.

"Did one of your foosball games get out of hand?" she asked dryly. In a bold, if foolish, tactical move, House attempted to look wounded.

"Typical. Wilson and I bravely unite against the enemies of this hospital - which is as close as we'll ever come to defending your honour, by the way, - and you accuse us of being mindless thugs. I'm hurt. All over again."

Cuddy's expression was nearing terminal intensity. "_House_ - "

House relented and rolled his eyes. "Do we usually squabble with our fists?" Contempt sounded in his voice: not aimed at Cuddy, but at the very idea of him and Wilson coming to blows. Cuddy nodded and buried her face in her hands.

"The room. The smashing of the room. You were involved, weren't you?" She filled the silence with a groan. "Ok. Tell me." As they sat down, Cuddy's demeanour shifted from "Dean" to "colleague", concern fighting with trepidation as she braced herself for the damage report.

Wilson opened his mouth to explain, but was cut off by House's account of events, where he was surprised to learn that House had apparently taken over Miss. Willow Rosenberg's care and discharged her; how he had then forgotten to report it on account of the tussle with the angry family members who had arrived fifteen minutes too late for a visit having flown in from Wisconsin; of how Wilson's futile efforts to break up the fight had led to mutual concussions and eight hundred dollars worth of damage to nearby machinery. Wilson watched the slump of Cuddy's shoulders grow progressively more exaggerated, and she finally turned to him for confirmation. "_This_ is the story you bring me?"

Wilson shrugged. "He tells it so well, doesn't he?"

"She wasn't your patient! You waited over twenty-four hours to tell me this because . . . ?"

"Recovery period," House declared. "Bathed as we are in the warm glow of your concern, I'm sure you won't have a problem with Wilson needing some time away from the hospital to recuperate. _Glass jaw_," he whispered. Wilson, who's thoughts had long ago strayed to the coffee maker in his office, managed to produce a flustered glare and quickly waved away Cuddy's concern.

"We're both fine."

"But you might want to have a word with security," added House. "Two guys, the cousins - they were pretty pissed. Don't want them coming back for a second round." He ignored Wilson's look of surprise and reeled off scathing descriptions of Spike and Michael. Cuddy nodded and sighed.

"I'll let them know. Please tell me that's everything?"

"For now, sure. But the day is young." House hovered for a moment after Wilson nodded to Cuddy and made for the door. "I mean it about security," he murmured, catching her eye. "Make sure they're on the look-out." And with a cryptic look at Wilson's back, he was stumping off after him, leaving Cuddy to sink back in her chair and feel the sharp dig of her nails in her palms. "Nine fifteen a.m.," she muttered bitterly under her breath. _After a morning like this, surely things could only get better?_

* * *

Wilson leant on the foyer desk and watched the guards manning the entrance uneasily. "You think that was necessary?"

"The elaborate web of lies, or warning security?" House lolled next to him, swiping a red lollipop with childish glee as a nurse turned her back. "No point taking risks."

Wilson snorted disbelievingly. "Am I still talking to Gregory House? How hard did you hit your head?" House sucked the lolly and glowered.

"Go do your clinic duty and shut up."

"What about you?"

House grinned and tapped his pocket. "I have a case. Time to test the green goo."

"So now you don't even need patients as an excuse to avoid work? That's clever. Running random substances through the lab - swabbing the cafeteria alone will give you a week off."

"If Cuddy asks, I still have that patient."

"Wait . . . you _don't_ still have that patient?"

"Cameron paged me during the great snooze. Apparently - and you'll never believe this - he _was_ lying. Tests showed he was positive for steroid use, which explained everything else. Normal, boring case all the time." He grinned and tapped the file in Wilson's hand. "Enjoy the crotch-swabbing."

Wilson rolled his eyes and walked into the exam room, eyes scanning the file as he opened the door. _Headache? Haven't people heard of aspirin?_

"Good morning, how can I help you - " He caught the name, and felt something flip in his stomach. He looked up very slowly, feeling a headache of his own pulse into life. " . . . Mr. Giles?"

* * *

It was against normal protocol to visit the cafeteria without either Wilson or his wallet, but House wasn't willing to risk getting stuck in the clinic for the rest of the morning. He'd left the lab monkeys to do their thing with the mysterious cure. Grabbing a sandwich and sinking into a chair, he suddenly noticed a familiar blonde figure sitting opposite him, nonchalantly drinking a milkshake and flicking through a magazine. He narrowed his eyes.

"What are the odds of you being here on a visit to a second comatose friend?"

Buffy smiled and slurped the milkshake. "Would you believe me if I said I just loved hospital food? Nutritious _and _delicious."

"Go away. Fun as the last forty-eight hours have been, I have no desire to see you or your friends again, unless you have a particularly interesting strain of the bubonic plague."

Buffy shrugged and started looking over the horoscopes. "Much as that gives me the warm fuzzies, I think I'll stick around a little longer. The lunch menu looks really interesting."

"Why are you here?" he demanded.

"The blueberry muffins aren't enough?" She waved a dismissive hand and leaned back in her chair. "Don't let me keep you from that important doctorly stuff. Don't you have lives to save?"

"And shouldn't you be skipping around a gym waving pom-poms?"

"Actually, my school is in California and right now I'm missing math. Gives me an extra incentive to stay." She frowned as she thumbed through a celebrity interview. "Seriously, no sick people today? 'Cause I'm kinda' busy here." She heard the squeal of a chair being pushed back as the doctor angrily walked out of the cafeteria and smiled grimly at the full page spread of Celebrity Confessions.

"Just you do your job," she murmured, reaching for the walkie-talkie in her pocket, "and let me do mine."

* * *

Wilson replaced the penlight in his pocket and started scribbling his illegible scrawl on the patient's chart. "It's not that I don't approve of you having a check-up after a period of serious illness. And I don't mean to imply that Mr. Giles' headache wasn't genuine, or Mr. Harris' . . . "

"Allergy?" supplied Willow.

"Yes. His _suspected potential_ allergic reaction to Gatorade, had he possessed _any_ symptoms, would also have been a good reason for him to come to the clinic. But you don't think that having all three of you as patients within two hours of each other could qualify as, I don't know - _stalking_?" Wilson crossed his arms and raised his shields against Willow's innocent stare.

"I guess it is kind of a coincidence."

"A coincidence? That you're all here together and all needed to come to this exam room?" He gestured to the blinds impatiently. "I can see them both waiting for you! Actually," he leaned towards the window and sighed, "I'm pretty sure that Mr. Harris is drinking another Gatorade. Good to know I calmed his fears." Willow hopped off the table and gave him a sheepish smile.

"Wouldn't we have to be more subtle to classify as stalkers? Or at least be, you know, remotely menacing?" She shrugged off his exasperated look. "Just act like we aren't here. And before you know it, we won't be."

"Is there any particular reason . . ?"

"It's really nothing to worry about," said Willow unconvincingly. "And I feel fine now."

Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose and gestured at the door. "Avoid the Dean's office when you leave. It's to the left, at the back. And security have been alerted about Spike and Michael. If that's what this is about, it's unnecessary. I don't need looking after. My patients _do_, so I'd appreciate it if - "

"I'm gone," said Willow quickly. Once again, Wilson felt entirely unconvinced.

* * *

On the way to and from his office, Wilson noticed Giles sitting in the waiting area on his floor, nose buried in a leather book and utterly unperturbed by his disbelieving glare. Xander appeared in frequent flashes in the corner of his eyes as he made his rounds. Willow was in the cafeteria at lunch, giving him an little wave over her salad. Mr. Rachid (lung cancer, stage three) was wearing an expression that suggested Christmas had come early when Buffy sat in a chair by his bedside with a sunny smile and started reading him the sports pages. Wilson felt his patience unravelling, and his urge to alert security grow with every sighting. He marched onto the balcony where House was waiting, and waved his arms in vexation.

"They're _everywhere_!"

"Just be grateful your office doesn't have glass walls. I've had to watch them trying to avoid you all day."

"House, what the hell is going on? Do you know why they're here?"

"Would you calm down? You _know_ why they're here. Obviously they take their Spike duty very seriously. You should be flattered."

"This wouldn't bother you? I don't need _looking after_!" House watched in amusement as Wilson ran his hands through his hair and turned an interesting shade of pink.

"So you aren't worried?" Wilson laughed in a way that showed no humour. "I'm serious. You don't think this is a big deal?"

Wilson blinked at him. Back at the hospital, back in control, the surreal horror of his situation two nights ago felt very distant.

"You haven't talked about it, and if it was me you wouldn't have shut up. Should we talk? Are you _repressing_?" Wilson ignored the vengeful little gleam in House's eyes and growled.

"I don't need this. It's ridiculous. It's distracting. Telling Security was over the top, but this . . .".

"Yeah, Security are always on the ball. I mean, sure, it was too much to expect them to stop the gunman coming _in_ to the hospital, but look how well they pounced on him _after_ he'd shot me. Can't sneak anything past those guys." Wilson made the involuntary little flinch that always accompanied any mention of House's near-assassination and looked at him earnestly.

"Do _you_ think there's anything to worry about?" House paused. It was Wilson, and miraculously he'd come back after he'd been taken, and he really didn't feel like taking any risks with his friend's life. But on the other hand, Wilson looked stressed to the point of having an aneurysm right here at his feet, and he had no wish to fuel the little spark of fear Wilson wasn't quite able to mask with his accusing question.

"Of course you don't need them," he relented. _He's got me_, House reasoned._ I'm marginally less likely to cause him to stroke out if I keep an eye on him._ "Just don't take candy from any strange men." Wilson looked slightly more mellow, before sliding back into suspicion.

"I don't need you watching me either," he added. House snorted.

"I only watch things that are entertaining. You and your bald band of chemo kids don't qualify. Anyway, I'm going out. Got to avoid Cuddy until I get the results back."

"Jogging park?"

"It's Monday. That means the Lycra brunette." _And if I go out now, he won't be paranoid later when I make him get take-out with me._ House couldn't visualise Spike rampaging through the busy and well-lit oncology lounge, but after work was a different story. He'd have to tempt Wilson back to his apartment with fictional promises of Hitchcock movies.

Above their heads, sprawled lazily on the parapet, Angel heard the doctors turn back to their respective offices and reached for his transmitter. "Hey, '_Nighthawk_'," he murmured, grinning maliciously into the mouthpiece. "Doctor Wilson's gone back into his office. All clear."

* * *

House marched from the balcony back through his office, ignoring the unimpressed looks his fellows were aiming at him from their enforced inactivity in the next room. Unsurprisingly, they had been less than thrilled to learn that House was devoting an entire day's work to waiting for lab tests on a substance they had never heard of.

His head was starting to buzz again like it had the other night, and he felt his own well of irritation bubble up inside him as he nearly bumped into Xander in the hallway, who was putting what looked like an over-sized mobile phone into his pocket with an annoyed expression. At the end of the corridor, a figure saw House pause in conversation, and stepped quietly back around the corner.

"What are you doing here?" barked House, and he was gratified to notice that the fuzzy ache in his head died away even as he said the words. _Wait 'til I tell Cuddy that yelling actually_ is _therapeutic_.

"Looking for a vending machine," said Xander, and from his peeved tone of voice House realised there was a note of truth in his answer.

"Stop following Wilson," he snapped angrily, forcing himself to bury any strange semblance of gratitude he held towards people looking out for his friend. _He wanted to gag you and drug you_, his memory recalled, and suddenly it was remarkably easy to fix the boy with a look that made him step backwards. "I can have a team of staff and a set of four-point restraints here in thirty seconds, so I suggest you get the message and leave." He stomped past the stunned boy towards the elevator. "And don't even think about following me," he shouted back over his shoulder. Xander grimaced and turned back to where he could see Doctor Wilson's doorway from his position in the hall.

"Don't worry about that," he muttered. "Jerk." He didn't even look up when two figures moved past him in tandem and headed for the staircase, following the downwards path of the elevator.

* * *

It was cold and quiet outside the hospital, the weather too chilly to tempt people away from their homes for anything other than the necessity of turning up to work. Wet leaves clumped in damp blotches over the concrete as he walked through the parking lot, and puddles welled up on the streets. He turned off the main road and into a sheltered side street, tired of hunching against the wind. His headache was coming back with a vengeance, and he found himself taking deliberately slow steps, half-afraid of collapsing to the ground again in a flurry of autumn leaves. He was so preoccupied with trying to diagnose the cause of his own headache and sidestepping the slippery leaf-clods, that he barely noticed the man standing in front of him until he was less than two feet away. House stepped aside to let him pass, but he merely took a step closer, and stood silently in front of him.

House looked up in surprise. The man was dark-haired, unnervingly well-built and _plain-looking_ somehow. It hurt his eyes trying to focus on him, which he attributed to his headache, but the total lack of expression on the man's face was harder to fathom. _High, a mugger, or both. Great._ "Can I help you?" he asked warily.

He might have spoken to a wall. The guy wasn't even blinking, and that was just weird. House stifled a growl of irritation and moved to step around him, but the man neatly mirrored his movement so that they remained almost face to face in the silent alley. The guy was emoting about as much human warmth as a plank.

"Thanks, but I don't need a dance partner. Move it." House's hand tightened on his cane, grateful for it's reassuring weight. _Muggers never realise that cripples come armed,_ he mused. _Let's see if this guy is quick to learn._ At the same moment that the man moved towards House in a jerky lunge, House swung the cane with a deft flick of his wrist and hit the man squarely in the groin. He had absolutely no intention of playing fair in this sort of situation.

House stepped back to admire his handiwork as the man crumpled to the floor in a ball. His face fell when, less than two seconds later, the man unfurled with dogged determination, and stood up again, _still_ silent, _still _expressionless. He felt something cold snake down his spine and the buzz in his head intensified. _Perfect. I get mugged by the only eunuch in New Jersey._ He stepped back, and turned to do his best impression of a run, when he noticed two more men standing like sentinels at the far end of the alleyway. He swallowed._ Oh shit._

Moving fast, he managed to dart past the man, who didn't move a finger to stop him, and he turned, swinging his cane like a bat. The stranger was undeterred, stepping forward into in a blow that_ should _have broken his arm. Instead, the man merely paused for a second, and then snatched the cane out of the astonished doctor's hand and threw it behind him, where it landed on the concrete with a forlorn clatter.

House knew from years of building up the muscles in his right arm that he could floor a normal man with his punch, and from the day he had woken up in that hospital bed he had known and resented the fact that he couldn't run. But never until that moment had he felt his disability so strongly, pinned in the dead-eyed stare of his assailant: now, for the first time, he felt the heavy and horrible truth of that fact that he couldn't run _away_. He gripped the wall and took a lurching, painful step backwards as the men began to walk slowly towards him like automatons.

"What do you want?" The men pulled up beside the other to form a wall of disinterested muscle, and _why the hell did they look like that, what was wrong with them?!_ "I don't have any cash. Seriously, I don't even buy my own lunch." A fist came smashing towards his face, and he twisted just in time to avoid the blow, sending it straight into the brick wall. _Holy crap._ The guy didn't even wince.

House took another hop back, gasping as his leg protested. It still hadn't forgiven him for his fall the other night. "Shit," he managed. "Hey, _help_!" He dodged another blow that came towards him like a pile-driver. They were moving with absolutely no sense of urgency, and that somehow made it worse.

"Help!" He looked longingly for someone to appear at the end of the alley; where the hell was freakishly strong girl? This had to be something to do with her, it had all the tell-tale signs: it was both weird and horrific. _They couldn't even stalk the right doctor?_ Or - it had something to do with Spike.

House threw all bravado aside as the men stepped towards him. "_Hey_, cripple-bashing here, would somebody like to HELP!" He turned and made a desperate bid for freedom, his leg crumpling as he felt a punch smash into the side of his head, knocking him to his knees. A pair of hands grabbed his shoulders, and suddenly his head was on _fire_, and he fought savagely against the touch, hitting out.

He writhed away from the hands for a moment and the burning pain receded, but he could only use the brief second of clarity to wonder what the hell was going on before there were more hands grabbing at him - and then his skull was going to _explode_; someone was screaming too loudly, and white darts were scoring lines across his retinas. The fingers tightened, clinging to his body and pulling him under like weeds, and he was too far gone to think or fight back. He was being lifted, and he couldn't do anything but be burned by the shrieking hot wires short-circuiting his brain. The taut line of fire arched and tightened through his body; it peaked; it snapped; it catapulted him forward into oblivion. The screaming doctor fell limp in the blaze of three minds and the grip of three bodies, and not a soul was there to witness him being carried away.

It started to rain gently as the men reached the end of the street. Raindrops landed on House's upturned face before he was loaded into the back of a dark car, and ran in rivulets down the little lines of his face. For a moment, the water seemed to smooth out the creases of pain around his eyes and on his forehead, before the lid of the trunk came down and sealed him away from the sky, locking him in darkness.


	13. Chapter 13

The doctor was dropped at Spike's feet with a solid **thump**. "Oh, _dear_." 

He prodded the unconscious man with the toe of his boot and grinned widely. "She hasn't aged well, has she?" The growl of fury that ground out of the figure behind him rumbled through the building, eliciting a faint moan from the senseless man on the floor.

**That is not the Slayer!**

Spike's eyebrows shot up to his hairline and he eyed House quizzically. "You know, I do believe you're right. Damn." He tsked at the three captors, hovering over their prize and blankly awaiting instruction. "Naughty demons!"

**The error is yours!** roared the voice.

"Hey, you saw me give the orders. How was I to know he was her stake-supplier? Chalk this one up to experience, I guess." Spike's flippant advice did nothing to soothe the creature's rage. When it next spoke, it's tone was as cold and hard as diamonds.

**Enough. We shall waste no more time.** The demons looked up expectantly.

**Kill him.**

It was hard to believe that the drones were capable of the lightning-fast dart they made towards House's body. The closest seized the unconscious doctor's hair roughly and yanked his head off the floor. Something flared for a second in its eyes ---

"Hey, woah woah woah!" Spike grabbed the thing's wrist and squeezed. "Snapping his neck? Where's the elegance in that?"

**Do not concern yourself with aesthetics**, sneered the voice in frigid tones. **We are demons. We kill.**

"And lose all that fresh-pumping blood?" Spike's grip was verging on the bone-crushing now, and the demon silently and sourly released its prey. "That's just wasteful. Not to mention the fact that this little change in schedule - "

**An idiotic mistake -**

"As you say - has fortuitously brought me and Dru a little present. No point chucking all that away." Spike stood up and tugged thoughtfully on his leather lapels. "We send them back after the Slayer, keep him for fun and games, and we're hardly a day behind schedule. He can be the warm-up for the main event, eh?"

**I warn you, Vampire. I will not be delayed any further. Your games do not amuse me.**

"Let's not be petty, now. I get what I want, you get what you want. Everybody wins." He eyed House again, cold and appraising. "'Cept this guy, obviously. Does that bother anybody here?"

The silence billowed around him for a few seconds, and he nodded in satisfaction. "Alright then. We send them out again. And I'll introduce the doctor here to Dru." Spike smiled the smug smile of one who has deftly sidestepped all the landmines, and is skipping towards the finishing line. "Time to set up our little procedure."

* * *

Of course, one of the key things about landmines is their tendency to suddenly blow up in unexpected places. Drusilla's lusty admiration of Spike's defiance of the Slayer-summoning had quickly turned into savage fury when she discovered her _pet_ (Spike stifled the urge to bite something) was not the replacement candidate. She stalked around the small stone room she had labelled her 'parlour' and hissed with anger. 

"Just look at him, darling," coaxed Spike. "He's perfect. He's just what you need."

"He's not what I _want_!" snarled Dru, stamping petulantly.

"But this is perfect, see? This way - this way, _your _doctor doesn't have to go through the process. We can keep him, for a rainy day. Play with him all you want. And this one, we can use to help you." _Once the process is complete,_ Spike told himself firmly, _she won't care about the other doctor anyway. She'll forget. And we'll go hunting._

Dru pouted and twisted that damn tie in her fingers again, unwilling to bounce back from the disappointment. "But he was so _delicious_." She gave that drunk little smile, the one that made Spike's heart remember what skipping a beat felt like, and lounged dreamily against the wall. "Could you feel it on him?"

"Feel what?"

"_Death_." She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. "He was doused in it. It clung all over him. So much time around them . . . All dwindling away . . . ". She made a purring noise and suddenly flitted over to the other doctor, where he lay on a low stone bench. He was stirring faintly, the demons' hold fading away. It was too soon for them to capture a new target using their traditional practices, especially someone as powerful as a Slayer, but Spike had smoothly talked them round to working a different method. It made their time-frame a little more urgent, but it was tried and recently tested, and Spike had cleverly made sure that it was their only remaining option.

She leaned over House's body and stared. As always, Spike couldn't help wondering what she was looking for, what she _saw_. Never the same things as anyone else, that much was certain. She pressed a curving fingernail into the faint worry-lines between his eyes and watched him frown in response, head twisting weakly away from the stimulus. "It's not as strong on him," she said flatly. "It's not -- _oh_!" She twitched, and moved around to his right side.

"What is it, pet?"

"Dead," she murmured, almost lazily.

"Told you, see? He's a doctor too. Humans dropping like flies everywhere he goes," said Spike triumphantly.

"No . . . not _on_ him . . . _In_ him . . " Spike jerked in jealousy as her hands darted out and grabbed the man's belt buckle. House was beginning to come to; his fingers curled against the stone and he let out a groan in protest. Spike planted his hands on the doctor's shoulders and watched warily as Dru pulled the belt off and began to slide the man's pants down over his boxers. Semi-conscious, House squirmed from some primitive intuition of panic, but he was still too spent to even open his eyes. He lay defenceless as he was pinned out like a butterfly, scar exposed to their probing eyes.

"Ouch," murmured Spike. "Well, he's a bit banged up. Doesn't make a difference to us, sweetheart."

"No", moaned Dru, tracing the ridge of scar tissue with a fingertip. "It's dead, it's a block . . . It drains all his life. I don't want it. It'll break _everything _- " Her voice rose in a wail and Spike was at her side in a second, dragging her hands away from House and onto his own shoulders.

"Hey, calm down - "

"No, no, no, he'll _ruin_ it -- "

"Ok, ok. It doesn't have to be a problem, eh?" He kissed her deeply, and her trembling subsided, intrigue sparking anew in her eyes.

"Can we really?"

"Of course, pet. We'll work around it. Only the best for you, Dru."

* * *

"Where's House?" 

Wilson looked up from his desk. "He isn't back yet?"

Cuddy shut his office door and cornered him with a glare. "Back from _where_?"

"Er . . . The clinic?" covered Wilson lamely. She sighed. "He should be around soon," he placated. "He's meant to be giving me a ride back."

"No, he's not," said Cuddy. Wilson raised his eyebrows at this bizarre order and she explained further. "Do you know what time it is? It's past seven; he's ditched you, ditched me and gone home."

"I don't think so." Wilson had gotten the distinct impression that House had no intention of letting him slip off home alone this evening, despite his protestations otherwise.

"I do. He's not in the hospital, trust me, unless he's hiding under your couch." Wilson frowned. Maybe he had mistaken House's apparent concern - it was _House_ after all - but the promise of mocking Wilson's newest band of followers should have been guarantee enough of his company. Cuddy smiled at his perplexity. "Did you think he'd leave you a note? It's House. He left his office at four and hasn't been back. I've already heard it from Foreman," she added, a note of irritation lacing her voice. Wilson started slightly, but she didn't seem to notice.

_Maybe he just went straight home. Got the test results, solved the case . . . Interest over._ Wilson fought a small pang as he arrived at this conclusion. _What, did you want House as a babysitter?_ he wondered angrily. He rubbed his bandaged wrist absently against his desk. _Back to business as usual._

"You should get home too," added Cuddy softly. "Sounds like you had a rough couple of days. Need a ride?"

"Thanks, but I should finish this. See you tomorrow." She nodded and paused as she stepped through the door.

"Oh, and if you do drop by on House tonight, tell him to stop wasting the lab techs' time. You don't browbeat them into running every test under the sun on whatever chemicals you fancy and then not even bother to pick up the results."

The pen dropped from Wilson's numb fingers. Thirty seconds later, he was sprinting across the balcony towards House's office, leaving it to bleed out its blooms of ink into the carpet.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Wilson arrived back in his office and stood in front of his desk, looking lost. House wasn't in his office, in any of the department lounges, in an empty exam room or on the roof, and his car was still parked in the lot. There was no Cuddy to hide from anymore, and still the test results for his prized bottle of green gunk lay untouched in the lab. House might have lost interest in the vague threat of Spike and his cronies, but there was no way he had lost interest in the medicine. 

Wilson tried calling him one more time before throwing his phone onto the couch and running his hands through his hair. _If he finds out I'm panicking like this because he skipped work, I'll never hear the end of it, _he thought. The sad fact about that theory was that it only held if there _was_ a rational explanation. Was he overreacting? He hadn't seen House since their conversation on the balcony, but it wasn't as if he had been watching out for him . . .

He stopped in his tracks. _Of course._ He peered onto the balcony, then out into the corridor. No one that he could see, but . . .

"Hey! I know at least one of you is there. Come out!" He waited for a few seconds in the silence that followed, and was just beginning to feel foolish when there was a faint _whisk_ing noise behind him and Angel dropped into sight outside his balcony door.

"Hey. Everything alright?"

Wilson gaped at him for a second. "How did -- you know what, never mind. Have you seen House?"

"Not since you were talking to him on the balcony."

"Oh. That's -- wait a second, you were _listening_ to that conversation?" Wilson put his hands on his hips and glared at Angel.

"Not intentionally," said Angel. "It was more that I accidentally overheard, if you get me."

"_No_, not really." Angel watched the stressed doctor seemingly fight to stay in control of himself, wondering if he was going to throw a punch. To his surprise, Wilson simply straightened up after a few seconds of silent fuming and gestured to the couch wearily. "Sit down. I need to talk to the rest of your friends. I can't find House."

Angel moved cautiously to the chair, pulling the walkie-talkie out of his pocket. "Wouldn't he have already left work by now?"

"Yes, but that's not the point." Wilson frowned, and snatched the walkie-talkie out of Angel's hand with surprising speed (and rudeness, considering his normal demeanour). "This is how you've been spying on me all day?!" He jabbed the button before Angel could respond and spoke into the mouthpiece. "All of you, come to my office _now_." He tossed the thing back at Angel and perched of the edge of the desk. "This is ridiculous. This isn't _Nancy Drew_; you either call the police if you think that there's a problem, or you admit that there's nothing to worry about. You don't embed yourselves in corners of the hospital and monitor me all day without my permission!"

Angel had the grace took look ashamed as the rest of them filtered in through his office doors, looking at Wilson curiously. "What's up?" asked Buffy, settling herself in his chair.

"House is missing. And stop visiting my patients."

"Missing? Since when?"

"I don't know, you're the ones doing reconnaissance. When did you last see him?"

They conferred briefly. "When he yelled at me to leave you alone," declared Xander, unabashedly present nonetheless. Wilson felt a brief rush of gratitude to his friend.

"That was about three seconds after you last saw him," pointed out Angel. Buffy looked uncomfortable, but decided to go for 'optimistic' anyway.

"That doesn't have to mean anything. Does he normally leave work early?"

"Yes, but this isn't a normal day!" snapped Wilson. "He hasn't even checked for his lab results, and that's the only reason he came into work today." Xander shrugged.

"So his work ethic's slipping. He got a half-day. I say kudos to the guy."

"You think this is _funny_?!" Wilson stepped forward with a murderous look in his eyes, and Giles hastily stood up in front of the doctor and spoke soothingly.

"You're right, we can't afford to take any risks at the moment. Where was he going when he left the hospital?"

"Jogging park," answered Wilson promptly, ignoring their puzzled looks. "I'll go and look for him there." He grabbed his coat and started shrugging it on, wondering why he had needed a consult to decide on this course of rather obvious action. Then he remembered. "Just take this seriously for a moment. You think this could be anything to do with Spike? There was nothing special about me, if he just wanted to get his hands on a doctor - "

"Technically, yes, but Drusilla tends to have very strong preferences over who they have for -- as guests," amended Giles. "If she acted as you say she did, it would be rather odd for her to change her mind now."

"I have to go," muttered Wilson. "If House is with Spike -- "

"Don't panic yet," said Buffy. "Like Giles says, not to freak you out, but you seemed to be the favourite." Wilson felt reassured for a second - she seemed so sure - before self-preservation kicked in. _That's not exactly ideal news_, he thought glumly. "And if Spike does have him, as long as he doesn't provoke -- " she trailed off suddenly, as she remembered who she was talking about, " -- isn't, um, _stupid_, or anything, he should be fine for a while."

Wilson went pale, imaging a list of possible responses House might make if confronted with Spike again. _Stupid_ seemed to fit pretty much all of them; _suicidal _was slightly more accurate. Not to mention the fact that Spike didn't even need to hurt House; take away his pills for a few hours . . .

Buffy's brittle smile finally gave up in the face of Wilson's horrified expression. "I'll come with you", she murmured, doubt beginning to rise up inside her. "But I'm sure he's just -- "

"Sitting out in the rain at eight p.m.?" said Wilson dully. "It's Spike." He didn't wait for her to agree - he turned and bolted out of his office, leaving the increasingly uneasy gang to look at each other in worry, before Buffy grabbed her jacket and sprinted after him.

* * *

The first thought House managed when he woke up was a fervent _thank God_ that the pain in his head had mercifully receded. 

It took about three more seconds for his leg, long overdue its friendly fix of Vicodin, to start complaining loudly, and he realised that the rest of him felt weak and exhausted, as if he'd been chewed up and spat out several times over. He opened his eyes, half expecting to hear the beeping of monitors and to see Wilson standing over him, looking pissy. No such luck. Wherever he was, it was dark, and freezing, and the beds felt like they were made of rock. He felt the cold seeping into his thin shirt, making him shiver, and he moved his fingers gingerly to realise: the bed _was_ made of rock. _What the hell?_

He glanced to the side and moved his hands to confirm - he was lying on a stone table. Far away, on the edge of the darkness around him, he thought he saw a pale female figure step into the shadows. _The White Witch_, his brain thought stupidly, and he felt a rush of childish fear. _Run_, and even though he knew he couldn't, something felt wrong when instinct moved him to try. He gripped the sides of the table and managed to push himself into a sitting position with an absurd amount of effort, and stared at his legs in stupefaction.

His right leg was chained - _**chained**, what kind of gothic horror movie had he wandered into?_ - to the table, the thick iron wrapped tightly once around his ankle and again at the top of his thigh, perilously close to pressing on his scar. His left leg rested awkwardly on top of the links, free to twitch uselessly as his fight or flight impulse soared into overdrive. House tugged at the chain uselessly but it was viciously tight, biting into the flesh, and there was no knot or lock that he could see, let alone reach, as he groped vainly under the table. He yanked at it again but couldn't even make it clink. He was trapped: tethered here by his one useless limb. _This has to be some sick fucking joke._

A noise cut through his panic and he twisted sharply to the left. There was a man, standing with his back to him on a raised level of this -- bunker? It was just empty, cold stone; this windowless pit wasn't what Wilson had described. The man was white-blonde. _Spike._ Of course Spike had done this. _Bastard._

"Hey," House rasped, levelling a furious look at Spike's back. "_Hey_!" Spike turned round, looking surprised. "Yeah, Sid Vicious! You -- what the hell did you do to me?"

Spike looked puzzled and skipped lazily down the steps. House tightened his grip on the stone sides as his stomach turned over. "My head . . . What did you give me? Jesus Christ . . ."

Spike grinned, and House clenched his fists. "Ah, that. Don't you worry, my friends have that effect on people. Few Aspirin and you'll be good as new." He stood at the foot of the table, leaning idly against it. He seemed in no hurry to elaborate further. House leaned back on his elbows and tried to think rationally, in this, the most illogical of situations. _He's dangerous_, chimed a little voice that sounded suspiciously like Wilson. _Don't push him._

"So," he said, in his best impression of a normal voice. "I understand you need a doctor. I work best with coffee, a whiteboard, maybe a sandwich. Chains tend to hinder my diagnostic abilities. Just so you know."

Spike put his hands on either end of the table, and leaned forward, a sharp tug in his thigh reprimanding House when he instinctively tried to squirm back. "Hey now, you think I'd drag you over here to work? What do you think I am?" House admirably restrained himself from answering. "We don't need what you can do, doctor," Spike explained contemptuously. "We just need what you_ are_. No need to strain yourself diagnosing."

House frowned. "Are you sure? Because most people don't like what I am. Just what I can do. It's pretty much the only reason they keep me around." He swallowed, and carried on: "I can't help noticing that you really seem to want to keep me around too. I'm flattered, but I think I'm about to lose the circulation in my leg, and you can see how that might be a problem for me."

"Oh, I wouldn't start worrying about that. Try not to dwell on it," said Spike lightly, and House nearly shouted.

"Surprisingly, what with the pain and the fact _I'm chained to a table_, I'm finding that kind of difficult -- " Spike grabbed his shirt front and pulled him forward, digging the bonds deeper into his leg.

"Do you really think you're in a position to argue with me, _doctor_?" Spike pushed him away carelessly and House fell back gasping onto the table. The top of his leg felt as if it was being gripped in a vice. He must have blacked out, because when his vision cleared and he could breathe again, Spike had gone from the end of the table. He cursed and then jolted as he saw a woman sitting at his side, watching him intently. She reached out and took his hand, like some sick parody of a bedside vigil.

"You're going to fix me," she said dreamily. He stared at her. She was looking at him expectantly.

" . . . Good," he said faintly. "Glad I could help." _Drusilla_, he remembered. _'I think she was high'._

She was staring at his leg now, and he wished he could curl away from her eyes. With unnerving precision, she let go of his hand and placed her own on his jeans above his surgical scar, flexing her fingers. He froze. _Don't touch, don't touch, don't touch - _He held himself tensely, waiting for the agony, but she simply traced its edges with her finger. "I looked," she whispered, smiling in flirtatious mischief, and House had a sudden memory of hands on his belt, ice against his stomach and thigh, and felt sick. He looked at her, and couldn't think of a less erotic moment in his life. "You're all blocked up," she announced.

"You going to sort out my chakra?" he asked bitterly. His defective leg was pinned out and framed by the chains at either end, forming the focus of her fascination.

"I'm going to check back," called Spike's voice, and House saw him standing at the top of those steps again, heading towards a doorway. "See how things are going with the Slayer." He shot House a smug look. "Maybe check up on your last doctor while we're looking, eh, Dru?" He was walking off before House registered what he'd said.

"Hey! Leave Wilson alone! _Hey_!" He struggled briefly against the chain, leaning towards Spike. "Leave him alone you _son of a bitch_!"

"Sssssh," said Dru, and her hand was on his chest, pushing him back against the stone and sapping everything out of him. She was doing something to him . . . Her eyes locked onto his, her hand roaming over his scar, and he felt unbearably weak.

"Let me go," he heard himself whisper, "Untie me, please -- "

"_Sssssh._" Her eyes were too big, too dark. They made him dizzy. "I can't do that, silly. You can't move it, it needs to stay still."

"Why?" It was little more than a moan, and he couldn't look away from her anymore. He couldn't even move. She moved her lips, but the world was unfocussing.

_Would you give up your leg to save my life?_

"What?" He was drowning, falling away from himself. His voice was faint to his own ears. He felt her nails raking through his hair.

"You haven't been listening at all, have you? You need to be _still_." She giggled like a child and her fingers dug into his scalp, and House felt six years old again, terrified of the monsters in the dark. "Be _still_, be _good._ You shan't move it. No mess." ." Her smile curved and filled his vision, edge to edge, sharp and cold as knife. "Because you're no use to me _at all_ until it's all gone. _Chop._"


	14. Chapter 14

**Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter - I have been away travelling, and miles from my PC. Thanks to my reviewers, please keep on letting me know what you think! feedback why I write.**

* * *

The park had been empty, all damp grass and stained picnic tables. Raindrops clung to Wilson's eyelashes and curled Buffy's hair. Wilson had insisted upon weaving their way back to the hospital in a wide, looping circuit that covered every side street and cafe that House might have ducked into, and Buffy hadn't objected. She was, to Wilson's gratification and worry, treating the situation with increasing seriousness. At some point in the tense search through the alleys and terraces, Buffy had started talking, and Wilson had started wondering again how the hell he had ended up having anything to do with this girl and her bizarre rabble. 

"So Angel and Spike used to be -- allies?"

"Sorta. He's switched to the good side now," she said, with a lightness that sounded forced. "So we know what we're dealing with. Gang life is fickle, let me tell you."

"Don't lie to me," he said sharply. The deserted streets seemed to be conspiring against him with their silence. Buffy and her friends had been an exasperating mystery in House's company; they felt like a sinister, frustrating plot in his absence. He was satisfied when she made no attempt to act shocked, but instead turned to him, her expression earnest.

"I'm sorry, I know this is . . . strange for you, but just trust me, please. We know Spike, and if Spike has your friend, we will do everything we can to get him back."

Wilson shrugged despondently. "House would never trust you. Why should I trust you with my frie - at all ?" There was no bite to his voice, just a kind of tightly-wound despair; seeping into his words and revealing itself in the way he scrubbed at the watery trails on his forehead. Buffy had never seen anyone manage to look so restrained as they unravelled, and it only served to fuel the rush of guilt in her stomach. She paused and rested against a rain-slick wall, staring at the sky as if seeking inspiration.

"Ok."

Wilson looked up, eyes narrowed. Buffy was sure that, perhaps even in spite of himself, he wanted to trust her, but his lie detector was now very much switched on. She couldn't trick her way out of this one.

"I'll be honest with you, as much as I can be. I'm not in - " her lips quirked wryly for a moment, "a gang. I don't think Giles will ever forgive Xander for that either, - but that's not important. If you want answers, I'll try and be honest with you now. Just -- Doctor House wanted to know _everything_. That was never going to happen." She looked at him steadily. "What do you _need_ to know?"

"Is House safe?" asked Wilson promptly. "Do you know where he is?"

"If he isn't just terrifying a waitress somewhere, then yes, I think I know where he will be."

"The warehouse?"

"But it would be stupid to turn up there until we're sure." Wilson nodded. They stepped deeper into the alley, but Buffy's answer wasn't quite finished.

"Spike is - a killer. So is Drusilla. You've met them," she added, by way of explanation, watching the colour drain from the doctor's face. His eyes, a warm, deep brown, looked unfocussed, as if he was seeing something play out inside his head.

"I don't understand," he managed finally. "They're just allowed to roam around and - They get off on _killing_ people?" The sudden note of indignation was a relief to Buffy, a signal he had snapped back to reality as he wheeled round on her, gesturing angrily, but more pleading than anything else. "What the hell is wrong with them? What do they want? Or do they just like causing pain?"

"They want a doctor."

"So they just want his help?" Wilson couldn't decide if he was relieved or disgusted. "There are nicer ways of getting for it - although, it's House, so most of them probably wouldn't work- "

"Not like you're thinking," she interrupted. She paused, hyper-aware of Wilson's gaze on her face. She wondered if he could ever believe the true answer, or if he would just think she was toying with him. He looked far too fraught to test with the true, and admittedly somewhat disturbing, _'vampires are real, and I think they want to snack on your buddy'_ explanation. "Spike believes in spirits, magic, stuff like that. He wants a doctor for - for healing energy, stuff like that. I'm guessing, anyway."

"Like . . . a Wiccan?!"

"Kind of. Types of energy, mystical flow, yadda yadda yadda - Look, I know Spike's not exactly party hats and jello, but everyone has a belief system, right? And he just wants a healer around."

"So he just wants House there? Doing nothing - like a . . ," Wilson gestured incredulously, "a conversation piece? A ridiculously over-qualified paperweight? . . . A _pet_?" Outrage, disbelief, and some perverse sense of dark amusement were grappling for dominance in his head, as he imagined House's reaction upon finding himself installed in Spike's living room and learning that his sole function was to emit 'positive vibes'. It sounded like a personally tailored version of hell. He sobered immediately; perversely comic it might be, but House having an explosive reaction to such a set-up was all too likely, and could only lead to injury.

"Maybe more like a talisman, then," offered Buffy, edging nearer a pile of leaves and poking them with her shoe.

"So, he's . . . safe? I mean, forced to project an aura of harmony and healing, which sounds like it might be a strain, but in no actual danger?" The man had never managed to attend a single departmental meeting or Christmas party, so his goodwill capabilities in a cold cell, with a maniac and without a steady supply of Vicodin, were admittedly bleak, but Wilson felt a rush of relief nonetheless. He felt marginally more secure knowing that House would have to actively incite Spike to harm him, if that wasn't his original plan. If he kept quiet and didn't -- Of course, this was _House_. He still might get himself half-killed before breakfast.

Buffy shook her head. "No, he's not safe," she said, jolting Wilson out of his musings.

"But you said - !"

She forced herself to look at the doctor, who suddenly was wearing an expression far too much like a kicked puppy's. "I'm sorry. Spike wants healing energy, but, from what Giles has managed to dig up. . . He thinks he can _use_ that energy, that aura, for something. So he wants to . . . extract it." She winced over the clinical, ominous word. "Like a - transfusion. Take it out of Doctor House, and absorb it for - for something else. Not sure what the else bit is yet, other than it's not much fun," she added in irritation. "Some kind of ritual, but apparently speaking six languages and memorising the Watcher guidebook isn't enough for Giles to figure it out, _yet_ - "

"Transfusion?" Wilson looked baffled. "He's going to take some of his blood?"

"Er, possibly," said Buffy, not looking at him. _Probably. Afterwards. If he's peckish._ "At some point. But hopefully not. Along those lines," she finished desperately, utterly at a loss as how a mystical rite designed to redistribute life force could be couched in medical terms. Wilson frowned, barely noticing when Buffy paused beside him and crouched down suddenly next to a pile of leaves.

"In that warehouse? Has the man heard of the word _sterile_? Does he understand about blood types and - well, _anything_ appropriately medical?"

"Er, Doctor Wilson -- " Buffy tugged on his coat sleeve, and held up the cane. It was dripping with puddle water, and adorned with the occasional leaf.

Wilson pivoted on the spot, staring for some other sign of House. It took several seconds for the realisation to descend on him that you could have one without the other. He felt sick. House would never voluntarily discard his cane. He took it from her hand. It looked expectant somehow, unfinished without its owner.

"Think you could use that as a weapon?" came Buffy's voice, from far away beside his ear. He shook himself.

"You think House was - ?" He paled, checking it quickly for some sign of violence, of blood. Nothing. He sagged in relief.

"No, I mean _now_." Her voice buzzed through the fog in his mind like a saw, and he jerked up suddenly, staring at the street ahead of them.

The no-longer empty street.

There were figures, three of them, clustered together in the dark. Buffy's eyes met his with a determined nod.

"Stay back, and keep that on you, just in case. This shouldn't take a second."

* * *

"Having fun?" 

"Go to hell."

"_Bo-ring._ I like the demons in this dimension. Less Latin, and cable's cheaper, too."

House ignored him. Spike squinted; his captive didn't look good. He was staring at the ceiling, or at least, scowling into the stifling darkness that hung over the ceiling in plumes, his gaze glassy. "You need to look on the sunny side of life, Doc."

The man's expression didn't change into anything more optimistic. _Detoxing in chains in a cellar_, Spike mused, _had probably dulled his receptiveness to motivational speeches_. "I brought you something," he added enticingly. Prey was no fun when it didn't play.

That got a spark. The doctor had been going on and _on_ about some pills to Drusilla, eventually trying to snatch them out of her hands when she had found the little yellow vial and started rolling them around her palm. Spike eyed the deep, claw-like scratches that ran down House's cheek; vivid red lines that made his incisors ache. Stupid move, trying to get one over on Dru like that. Every plea and oath and (impressively inventive, Spike had to admit) threat that the man had made after that had been met only with a pout, or a burst of violence. Spike smiled fondly. _Ah, Dru_.

He was dragged back to the present by House's eager expression, and theatrically produced a small cup of water from behind his back. The doctor looked disgusted for a second, before propping himself up on his elbows and reaching out a hand. Spike had loosened the chain, not wanting to risk any new symptoms that might scupper their plans: still tight enough to insure that the man couldn't wriggle away, but with enough give that he could sit up without greying in pain.

He watched the doctor's throat bob as he hastily downed the liquid, and tried to remember the last time he'd fed off a drug addict. Despite his bluster to other vampires, it didn't give him an extra high, it just tainted the taste. He imagined bright arterial blood pumping out of the man's carotid, heart-rushed into his throat in pulsing gulps ---

"What do I have to do to get dry bread around here?"

"Chef's out. Nothing fancy for you; we just need you in working condition for later."

"Right. Wouldn't want anything wrong with me that might interfere with your girlfriend's delicate procedure - what was her idea again? Hacking me up with a hatchet?" snarled the doctor. Spike beamed.

"She told you about the axe? Gotta love that bedside manner." House went so pale he practically glowed in the half-light. Clearly he had been expecting some sort of contradiction from the saner one of his captors.

"Axe?"

"You brought it up," he pointed out, stretching languidly.

"You -- You're not serious." The doctor wore a disbelieving half-smile, scanning Spike intently.

"Oh dear. I do hope you didn't dismiss what my darling Dru told you. Why would she lie?"

"She's a fucking loon," muttered House, and he'd learned just enough to keep his eyes down and his voice low when he said it. Sadly, the learning curve was steeper than that. The punch to his gut made the man retch, and he rolled onto his side, half-hanging off the stone table as he panted for air.

"Is that anyway to talk about a lady?" chided Spike. It was several gasping seconds before House could speak to reply.

"What _the fuck_ do you _want_?"

"You'll see."

"When you kill me? That might be a little too late for analysis."

House fell back and stared at the ceiling again, fists clenched by his sides. He was actually _sweating_, noted Spike, from pain, but his face looked thoughtful, even edging towards composed.

"You aren't that much of a moron," House added, and even Spike had to be impressed by the man's apparent inability to curb his tongue. "This isn't a _Saw_ remake, and I'm pretty sure randomly accumulating limbs isn't your actual goal here, unless you wanted to smarten the place up, maybe mount it on a wall." The man's voice grew steadier and more confident as he aired his theory. "You want me scared, have your little power trip, but you can't just have dead bodies piling up in a room without getting caught. You're not an ex-patient, you don't know me. Hurting me," he concluded, "gets you nowhere. What do you _actually_ want?"

The man looked smug, like he'd figured something out. _Why were humans so bad at grasping their impending doom?_ Spike wondered philosophically. It always annoyed him when people acted like they had any control over what was happening, when they didn't take him seriously; but a friendly little bite to serve as a lesson wouldn't do . . .

"That reminds me. Like I said, I brought you something." The doctor looked confused, eyes flitting to the discarded cup on the floor. His look was almost comical when, mere seconds later (and damn, if Spike didn't love the obedience of those drones - no style, but what_ timing,_) three figures entered, dragging an unconscious body across the floor and it dumping against the side of House's current living quarters.

"Holy shit - "

Spike watched in interest as the man twisted and leaned as far as he could over the ledge, feeling for a pulse in the girl's throat.

"The Slayer. I've had my eye on her for a while. Best two kills I ever had, back in the day, and this one's a real spitfire, you know?" House wasn't listening.

"What have you given her?" he demanded.

"I didn't think concern was part of your repertoire." Spike nodded, and the three drones dragged the girl into an adjoining chamber out of House's sight. The man was clearly shaken by the reappearance of his attackers, but he seemed overwhelmed now by a fresh wave of fury:

"So now you abduct schoolgirls and bring them to your basement? Let her go, you sick - "

"Well, if your friendly co-worker had been a better protector, she wouldn't be here." God, he loved this guy. So many expressions, so many shades of rage. So much _fun._

"Wil -Where is he? What the hell have you done?!"

But Spike was a busy man; even if the girl had gotten the full dose, that barely guaranteed them any time. "I think," he said by way of an answer, "that you still haven't quite figured out your place in the food-chain. I'd stop talking back, if I were you." And then he bent down to pull the chain as maliciously tight as he can could, because really, Spike wasn't used to this type of insubordination from anyone beyond the Slayer's little gang. A guy's ego could suffer.

"Where -- "

Spike grabbed something from his pocket, ripped away from Drusilla's room in an earlier moment of anger, and House froze on the table, before a sudden look of hope overtook his features. "That's his Friday tie. You took that . . . before."

"Lucky for him, my guys can only focus on one thing at once. Bit like Dru. She's raring to go with you. Although maybe we'll bring in your Doctor Wilson for an after party."

"After _what_?" snapped House. He had curled upwards over his damaged leg, looking at Spike with venomous hatred.

"After, as you put it, our little procedure. I thought you were a doctor? Catch up."

"Ever hear of a thing called _informed consent_? I'm guessing the last bit is totally off the cards, but how about you try with the first part?"

"You won't understand," said Spike imperiously, and then scowled when the doctor gave a little snort of contempt and said, with absolute confidence;

"I understand _medicine_." House propped himself up again and looked Spike directly in the eye. "Come on, talk me through it. Explain how anything you're going to do to me could offer you any physical benefit and then I'll tell use my thirty years of medical training to explain why it's the dumbest idea I've ever heard, and everyone can go home."

Spike shrugged. "I'm afraid your opinion really doesn't count for much. This is a _special _medicine. Purifying." House snorted.

"Purifying, my ass. You aren't practising any voodoo new-age crap on -- " He wisely decided to shut up when Spike's hand suddenly pinned him flat against the table, and glared into his eyes. Spike could feel the man's heart jump against his palm and increased the pressure on his chest.

"On the contrary, you narrow-minded human _quack_, let me tell you _exactly_ what I'm going to do to you."

And Spike explained; about the 'operation' (rite) and the 'surgeon' (Dru, judging from the fiendish anticipation she'd displayed earlier); about its guaranteed success and its imminent execution, and watched with grim satisfaction as the horrified doctor finally grasped the reality of his situation, the truth sinking through his consciousness like a stone. Humans were always slow and reluctant to catch on to inevitability, but that moment of realisation was always so gratifying when it came.

Unsurprisingly, House had some very definite ideas about how medicine worked, and now that terror had overthrown all caution (_"Are you actually fucking insane?!"_) Spike was going to get a headache if the man wasn't subdued somehow. He wrapped the tie around his hands and stepped forwards - it wouldn't do to let the doctor ruin his evening. But he had definitely been fun for a while.

* * *

Giles thumbed irritably through the musty pages he had thrown open on Doctor Wilson's desk. "We're missing _something_. They came New Jersey . . . Tracked down the necessary apparatus . . . Summoned something, and then - then they decided they wanted a doctor, after those attacks on Buffy and Willow. Unless he's changed his goal, it doesn't fit - " 

"Maybe he has a new goal?" suggested Willow. "Maybe Spike changed his mind when he got here, couldn't find all the stuff to raise the demons?"

"Or maybe he has _two_ goals," murmured Giles. "Two targets: one was Doctor Wilson, and the other -- "

He was cut off by a bang as the office door burst open and Wilson practically fell into the room, gasping and wild-eyed. "_House_," he panted, "Spike's got him -- Buffy -- " He waved a cane with blood-stained knuckles, and was saved from near-collapse as Xander grabbed his arm and guided him into a chair.

"Breathe!" said Willow in alarm, kneeling down next to him. "Are you hurt?"

"Where's Buffy?"

"What happened?"

"Let the man catch his breath," snapped Giles, slamming his book shut. There were a few tense seconds where the silence was broken only by Wilson's ragged gasps. A fresh cut was bleeding freely on his forehead and his clothes were damp and dishevelled.

"Three men," he managed. "We found his cane, and they arrived and Buffy started to fight them, and they cornered us, injected her with something when she -- I couldn't stop them, and then when I woke up -- she'd gone. I'm sorry." The doctor looked utterly distressed. "I couldn't stop them, I'm so sorry." He stared at the cane in his hands, unable to look up as Angel hit the wall with a snarl of fury and Giles went pale. Small white hands rested gently on his own, and he pried his eyes up to meet Willow's gaze.

"It wasn't your fault," she said softly. "You tried." Wilson gave a strange little half-shrug, looking not in the least unburdened, and suddenly hooked the cane over the edge of the desk and turned his head, unable to look at it.

"It doesn't matter," said Angel suddenly. "Their plan, it doesn't matter, we don't have time to figure it out anymore. We have to go _now_."

"You didn't see Spike?" pressed Giles. "You're sure it wasn't anyone you recognised?"

"No, it was three men, they were . . . They were just - I don't know, they weren't Spike but I can't really remember their faces -- "

"You weren't paying attention when they made off with our friend?" asked Xander bitterly. Willow gave him a furious look.

"Of course," muttered Giles. "Silent men, yes? Very similar, very - non-descript, am I right?"

"You know them?"

"Of them," he said, with a meaningful glance at Angel. Some sort of secret understanding seemed to pass between them, but Wilson was too tired for secrets now.

"They got House, and they have Buffy as well. I assume we're going to take this seriously now?" he asked dully. He was far too drained to summon anything like resentment. He fished in his pocket and brought out a syringe, passing it to Giles. "I knocked it out of his hand, after . . . It was red, there might be traces left we can detect in the lab. Bright red. It knocked her out."

"That's the venom," said Willow, springing up to examine it.

"You were the test," said Giles. "And that lasted three days, at least. That gives it - what, maybe twenty-four hours on the Slayer? Maybe less. They don't have long to work with before it wears off."

"It's happening tonight then, or this morning. No more planning, grab some weapons, and let's go. They'll be below the warehouse."

Wilson shook himself back into consciousness. "You're going after them?"

"Tonight," said Giles. The group nodded, looking somber and almost unbearably tense. "I'm afraid we can't call in any outside aid."

"I'm coming," said Wilson. Xander opened his mouth to protest, but Giles cut over him.

"It will be very dangerous," he said, and Wilson nodded. Voices registered in his mind, delayed echoes of _weapons_ and _plan_, shot through with the palpable sense of fear radiating off the group and a high-pitched wailing voice that told him that this wasn't a movie and that calling the police was the most sensible thing he could possibly do. But he thought of Drusilla's eyes and Spike's smile, and heard his own voice sound incredulously in his ears: _and you were going to do what when you broke free? Follow her?_

His eyes fell on House's cane hanging quietly from the corner of his desk, and he shrugged again.

"I'm coming."


	15. Chapter 15

**Thanks again to everyone who left a comment on the last chapter. Makes me write faster! **

**_Feather of the Phoenix, _the time scale of this story is pretty short, which is why only Wilson was freaking out about House's disappearance, as only Wilson was aware of the potential danger. It's still less than 24 hours since House and Wilson arrived at work again, you see, and House isn't exactly known for sticking to his work schedule.**

**You guys know the drill now; let me know what you think - **

* * *

House had realised: he was wrong. 

All these years of being labelled a bastard, a misanthrope, and all the while he had been far too generous in his assessment of human nature. His default assumption had always been 'people are stupid', but even _he_ had never believed that they could reach such pinnacles of delusion as Spike and Drusilla. He'd like to see Cuddy try to smack some humanity into_ them_. They thought they were right, that was the worst thing - they were beyond reason, and they had absolute control over what promised to be the exceedingly brief remainder of his life.

And _Christ_, his leg hurt. Last time he'd been facing amputation, the pain had been terrible, but it had been an alternative, an anchor, or a hope, of some sort. Now it was just a starter, a crescendo towards that moment when -- _No anaesthetic_, he thought. He wouldn't even be able to put up a fight. He had a very hazy recollection of the moments after Spike had finally told him - something must have snapped then, for a moment - because it had somehow led to him being rendered even more useless than before. His wrists had been tied to his sides, pinning him flat against the table. He hoped he'd gotten a few good insults in, but he couldn't actually remember his words (_last words?_) before the final indignity, when he'd been gagged with Wilson's ugly tie.

That insane bitch was sitting next to him, murmuring something, but he'd be damned if he'd listen to her when they wouldn't listen to him. He felt her fingers - cold, reaching into his hair like spider's legs - and jerked his head away.

He felt defenceless now. Rationally, he guessed he should have known that his chances were blown when he'd woken up in chains, but it turned out that Wilson's flimsy strip of green silk was a much more effective morale-killer. Couldn't reason, couldn't beg, couldn't at least go out in a blaze of glory and well-chosen expletives. He was reduced to just his body, and his body had always let him down. The only sounds he could make were pain-triggered; they made him weaker. Made him passive. Pathetic.

There was a grinding noise to his left, and then Drusilla was up and standing over him, one hand ghosting over the scratch marks she'd left in his cheek. He wanted to glare. He knew he should probably try and do Wilson's puppy-dog eye thing and maybe win a last minute reprieve. In the end he ended up just staring at her, his gaze as unguarded and open as his body. Something about Drusilla sucked all the bravado out of him.

"You're a lucky boy," she said, winning the House award for 'the dumbest thing to say in the face of all possible evidence'. "No more waiting." Her hand drifted down to his chest, felt the sudden hitch of his breath. "Ready?"

He shook his head, and the wordless gesture made him want to cry. He remembered being with his mother at the dentist's office when he was a child; being asked the same question; how his face had crumpled up and he had shaken his head, _no, no, no_.

"Silly." She smiled to herself. "It's going to be fun." And then she had gone, drifted out of the room, and he was left alone in the middle of the billowing, overwhelming silence.

_When she walks back in the room, you're going to die_, he told himself, even as his mind seemed to roll away from the scene and watch dispassionately at his heaving chest and muted struggles.

_What are you going to do now?_ He stared into the darkness through hot eyes. _Make it count._ But there was nothing in the darkness, there was nothing to hold onto.

There was noise, distant and far away, and _this was it, then_. There was no final blinding insight, but he did suddenly realise that he would really like a last drink, maybe a scotch, and that he couldn't seem to recall a single conversation he'd had with anyone he gave a shit about in the last week. The noise came closer.

His only consolation, he thought, (and amazingly it brought some tiny glimmer of peace as he went very still, and shut his eyes, and imagined ivory keys laid out before him like a stairway as he began to play) was that Wilson was safe. He might be fretting in his hotel room, or be tight-jawed and pissed that House had never given him that lift, but at least he wasn't here. That was something.

* * *

The problem, Angel had explained, was not finding the warehouse, but finding one's way around when they got inside. Apparently the thing was cavernous, all underground chambers and rickety staircases, so they had agreed, when they came to the window from which Wilson had dropped so unceremoniously only days before, that they should locate House and Buffy before they attempted anything like a rescue. The others were presumably still outside, awaiting the moment when Angel came round to lead them in. Meanwhile, here Wilson was, lying flat on his stomach with his companion pressed against his side, listening to the quiet murmurings of Drusilla filter up from below them. 

As Giles had suspected, House and Buffy weren't being kept together. The maze of dark corridors had led them here, onto a high and flimsy-railed balcony that branched around the top of the room and descended somewhere to his right into the gloom below. Wilson knew that the dim lighting below them kept them safely in darkness, and the need to stay hidden was the only thing that had stopped him from punching Angel in the mouth when they had stared down over the railing, and the man had whispered, as if to assuage his earlier fears;_ "Well, at least your friend can't say anything stupid."_

To distract himself from the image of House helpless below him, utterly unaware that help was coming, Wilson clutched the bag to his side and began mentally reviewing its contents. He had ended up bringing House's old rucksack and plying it full of medical supplies to combat every horrific scenario that his mind had played out, including enough Vicodin to stun an elephant and House's cane, neatly retracted to it's shortest setting. He'd also packed the test results and sample of the gunk House had left at the lab, and a fresh sample of its red counter-part that Giles had apparently stored in the hotel room, hoping everything they could possibly need would be available when the moment came. It had only struck him now, lying in the darkness, that the only thing he hadn't thought to bring was a weapon of any kind.

He froze as there was a shifting noise from below them, and then footsteps trailed lazily out of the room. Angel crawled forwards. "It's Dru," he whispered, "she's gone." Wilson nodded numbly. "Like we discussed, ok? _Go_."

Somehow he was back on his feet and heading down the staircase, fighting a wave of nausea. The narrow steps tilted dizzily in front of him. Half of him was flooded by the instinct to crouch down at the bottom of the stairs and hide, to make sure that danger had gone before he stepped out towards that little pool of light and exposed himself, plan or no plan. But when he reached the bottom and saw the isolated figure pinned out in the candlelight, suddenly the darkness was the worst place to be - hidden from danger, but also from House. House, who was holding himself rigid with his eyes screwed shut in a way that reminded Wilson of his own childhood prayers in times of terror: _if you can't see them, they can't see you_.

The very idea that he could crouch on the sidelines for a second longer was suddenly intolerable. He moved forwards breathlessly. He was mere metres from his friend's side when everything seemed to happen very slowly.

House opened his eyes with an air of slow determination and turned his head, most likely to glare at whatever he thought was coming. Instead, he saw Wilson.

Wilson watched House's eyes round with unbarred shock; he felt himself reaching out, as if to prove his presence -

Then there was the heavy clang of something metallic hitting the ground, and his nerveless fingers froze in the air as he met Drusilla's gaze, lancing into him from the other side of the table.

There were a few seconds of frozen, taut silence where Wilson felt rooted in place, thoughts scattering out of his head like dropped coins, and then it was broken by House, as he made an incredibly expressive sound that Wilson instantly knew meant _Run_.

"You came back to play," she said gleefully. House made an urgent noise and jerked against his restraints. Wilson stared at her for a moment, and then cleared his throat.

"Yes." It was unsettling how Wilson just _knew_ the next noise House made was an expletive. He stepped forwards, around the edge of the table and closer to Drusilla. "I've come back," and he stepped carefully backwards away from House, edging along into the shadows.

"I've been thinking about your insides. All the parts you hide," she purred, slinking towards him and away from House's frantic and furious struggling on the table. Wilson wondered if she was talking about his entrails or was being poetic, realising how disturbing it was that she might easily mean either. "In through your eyes," she added, and Wilson prayed that she was being poetic now. He took another step back, slightly to the right. _Further right . . ._

"You're covered in death." _Oh God, she actually sounded turned on. And what the hell did that mean?!_

"Really?" he managed. His voice sounded too high. He felt his back hit the wall.

"Do you like my eyes?" she asked, staring at him. He swallowed. She moved forwards, almost pressing herself against him. He tried to look away, to think clearly and remember what it was he was meant to be doing.

"If you don't answer, you'll make me sad." Wilson opened his mouth and got no further, spiralling into the depths of her gaze. Her finger touched his cheek, and he couldn't remember how to flinch away as she slid her palm across his jaw, around the back of his neck, and gripped the hair at the base of his head. Wilson dimly wondered why he was letting her do this and why all his motor functions seemed to have abandoned him as she stepped backwards, arm extended, and twisted his head to the side.

"As you've been naughty, I'll have a little taste, pet." Wilson gasped as the hand tightened, baring his throat; Drusilla gave him a wolfish smile - and was smashed to floor as Angel dropped on top of her from the balcony.

Wilson blinked at Angel, stepping carefully up from the unconscious woman on the floor, and suddenly remembered how to speak and move.

"When we went over that," he said, trying to sound as steady as possible, "I don't remember the save being quite so dramatically last minute." Without a backward glance at the unconscious figure on the floor, Angel darted to House's side and wrenched the gag roughly from his mouth. "_Where's Buffy?_" The stunned doctor only hesitated for a moment before nodding his head at the low archway behind them. "Through there . . ".

Angel was already sprinting towards the opening. "You two, get out of here. I'll take care of Spike, just _go_," and he was gone, leaving House to stare blankly after him, starting when he felt hands working at the knots around his wrists. _Wilson's hands._ He lay still and listened to Wilson's slightly ragged breathing, still utterly dumbfounded, but hopefully not hallucinating. Wilson _felt_ real, anyway.

"Are you ok?" _Sounded real, too._ With what felt like far too much effort, House raised his head off the table and squinted at his friend. Wilson looked worried. His voice felt used up when he spoke, scratchy:

"You . . . planned that?" Wilson nodded, tugging at the stubborn ropes. "You were _bait_?"

"Maybe you'll stop bitching about my flirting now," muttered Wilson, abandoning his efforts and stepping forwards to peer into House's eyes. "Hey, are you with me? What day is it?"

"You nearly gave me . . . a heart attack." He twisted away from Wilson's hand, which was gently probing his hairline for contusions. "Hey, quit -." _Great, I'm tied down and Wilson's in doctor mode,_ he thought muzzily, but unexpectedly Wilson didn't pounce on this golden opportunity. Instead, he gave him a brief touch on the shoulder before disappearing from his line of vision, saying something that was lost to House as he found himself again with nothing to see but the reeling darkness. He was swallowed by a sudden wave of panic. "Wilson?"

"It's ok, I'm just getting - " and with a disproportionate rush of relief House saw Wilson bob into his eye-line again, pulling out something small from his rucksack - _hey_, my _rucksack_, realised House - and setting to work on his bonds.

"Penknife," said House softly, his gaze lolling back to the ceiling. "Very boy scout, Jimmy. You bring cookies?" He felt the pressure loosen around his left wrist.

"No, but I brought Vicodin." House grinned a wide, lazy grin (_was he already high?_) and tried to move his left hand.

"You brought me drugs? Sweet -- "

"House - _House_!" He twitched and noticed Wilson, still staring at him - _Jesus, I shut my eyes for a second,_ he thought vaguely. A burning pain signalled to him that his hands were both free and his circulation was painfully being restored. "Sit up," - and apparently he didn't have a choice, because Wilson was practically lifting him into a sitting position, letting him rest on his elbows as the world finally turned the right way up again and swam around him. And then Wilson was making him drink something, swallow something and then, maybe seconds or minutes later, time refocused and he came back to himself with a jolt and an unpleasant awareness that he felt like he was about to throw up. He shifted his weight to his left arm and winced as it protested angrily. "House?"

"Mmm." _Get a grip_, snapped a private voice, and House opened his eyes again. "I'm ok. You're here. I've got it." Wilson gripped his shoulder again.

"I promise you, you're not high. You will be very soon when the Vicodin kicks in, but I'm not a hallucination."

Wilson scanned House's face carefully, relieved that he suddenly seemed more lucid. His heart was still hammering from when House had slumped back to the table, even though it was perfectly reasonable for him to be groggy from pain, or shock, or any number of things that their current situation warranted.

"You came on a rescue mission," said House, his tone a mixture of accusation and surprise, and Wilson fought the urge to blush or look away when he realised that House had been studying him in return with those clear, bright, inscrutable eyes. He didn't look dazed anymore. He was speaking softly, and looking at Wilson almost . . . Tenderly. "Moron."

Wilson realised his hand was still resting on House's shoulder, and self-consciously dropped it to his side. "You going to pass out on me?"

"No, I feel peachy now." House nodded towards the chain on his leg, suddenly animated and eager. "Get me the hell out of here."

Wilson crouched down and looked for some way to loosen the chain below the table, but the ends were securely locked and bolted together. He managed to untwist it so that its grip slackened fractionally. He heard House give a small groan of relief even as his heart sank. No penknife was going to saw through the thick iron. He stood up, schooling his face into a calm expression. "Is there any chance you might - you could, maybe with some help, wriggle out of it?"

House glowered at him. "I'm afraid you must have me confused with the great House-dini," he snapped, slapping his palm down on the top of his leg. "Try again, Sherlock."

Wilson bent dubiously over the metal links and flinched back almost immediately. Considering that he had just loosened it, the initial setting must have been barbaric. "Can you move your toes? How long -"

"Yeah, yeah; we can do all that after I get off this table, otherwise it really doesn't matter much either way." He gave the thing another futile wrench and fell back in frustration. "_Fuck_," he whispered, to no one in particular. He sat up again with a grimace and gripped the sides firmly. "Just go," he said, ignoring Wilson's immediately appalled expression. "You've got her out of the way, there's no point sticking around to get caught by reinforcements. Send in an ambulance with a chainsaw on your way out."

Wilson looked pissed. Hands on hips, eyebrows raised incredulously, as if he had just stolen his lunch instead of advocated that he flee for his life. _Better pissed than dead, all the same_, thought House ruefully. He was stuck here now. His only call was whether he dragged his friend down with him.

"I came here to get you!"

"Even more reason that I'd rather you didn't end up dying for the effort," said House. "I'm not going anywhere. You just going to wait for them to come and finish me off?"

"I'm not going anywhere, so you can just shut up and use your head, ok?" snapped Wilson, pacing around the end of the table. "I'm not leaving you here on your own." House felt a guilty burst of relief and gratitude, and shook himself. That wasn't the plan._ I'm going to have to say something _really_ asshole-ish,_ he thought --

There was a heavy clang, and Wilson suddenly stood up on his other side, hefting an axe thoughtfully in his hands. House went deathly pale. _Drusilla dropped it when she saw Wilson_, he realised. Even in the grip of his friend, the cruel gleam of its edge made his stomach drop as he remembered its original purpose.

"That's . . . incredibly weird and convenient," said Wilson, before glancing up at his friend and nearly dropping it onto the floor with a noise that would be sure to rouse every other madman lurking in the building. "House?"

"Handy," croaked House, tightening his grip on the table. "I'm fine," he added weakly. "Just do it." Wilson looked dubiously at the chains and moved to stand at the end of the table. House managed to pull his free leg out of the way of the chains, pulled taut against the table-top, before lying back and putting his hands over his eyes. "Tell me that at some point as a dorky boy scout you chopped firewood," he moaned. "Tell me you can aim that thing." The image of his best friend, raising an axe high over his head imprinted itself on his corneas with indelible accuracy.

"Sure," came the unconvincing reply. Wilson was thinking, _oh crap_. "Surgeon's hands, right? How hard can it be?"

House's eyes flew open to provide Wilson with a fiercely-worded rejoinder, only to see the slicing flash of metal as Wilson hurled the blade downwards with all his power. The small part of his mind that wasn't flailing in horror hoped that no one heard the loud crack of splitting metal -- "_Fuck_!!"

Wilson fell backwards, dropping the axe as pain exploded up his arms, stuttering like machine gun fire. "Ow, _God_, that hurts -- ". He staggered, revolving in a dizzy circle before half-falling over the table top with a yelp. He managed to drag himself upright again to be met by House's amused gaze.

"No, you didn't sever any limbs, by the way. Just in case you're interested." Wilson gave him a furiously reproachful look, his eyes dark. "Good job," House added, by way of consolation. Wilson shook his head with his usual air of resignation and disbelief and began to help House tug on the cracked chain, giving it another tap with the axe before their combined strength managed to pull the link apart and unwind it. House gave a groan of relief and sank back while Wilson hovered anxiously.

"We should hurry - "

"Just give me a minute." The parts of his leg that he could actually feel were in agonising pain. He supposed he should hope that the rest woke up and joined them.

"How bad?"

"Better now . . . with pills," muttered House. Walking seemed unthinkable. But so did staying here a second longer. He was fairly certain he wouldn't get further than six feet in his current condition, but the longer he lay here, the longer he and Wilson were open bait for Spike and whoever else might be lurking in this hellhole.

"Ok," he said, with a conviction he didn't remotely feel. "But stairs are a no no." Wilson opened his mouth, and House interrupted with practised ease. "After that guy you came in with," he said firmly. "That girl Buffy is going to need a doctor."

"_This_ is the moment you decide to discover your fellow-feeling?"

"Unless you want you to carry me up a flight of stairs." Wilson flitted his eyes nervously at the dark staircase, and nodded.

"Philanthropy it is." He helped House slide round into a sitting position and pulled his arm over his shoulder, a part of him relieved at the chance to aid the girl whom he felt he had failed so dramatically before. "Let's go."


	16. Chapter 16

**I'm sorry it's been a while - multitasking two stories at once is much harder than I thought it would be! As ever, please let me know what you think - more coming very soon, I promise.**

* * *

"Ok, on three. Ready?"

Wilson felt House grip the cotton of his shirt more tightly, but it seemed no further answer was going to be forthcoming.

"Ok, then, . . . One, - " and he stepped forward, dragging House from his upward-slump on the table and wrapping his other arm tightly around the man's waist before he could collapse onto the floor. Too surprised to utter an oath, House contented himself with heavy breathing, and levelling Wilson with a glare that could strip paint. He smiled back insincerely. "What? It's a legitimate medical technique."

"Lying to the patient?" Wilson tightened his grip as they took one faltering step forward. "Tricking the crippled?" House was speaking through gritted teeth, swaying alarmingly against his friend. His thigh was on fire. He was never going to make it. He also wasn't going to spend his final minutes before succumbing to cold and fatigue in a god-forsaken dungeon suffering through one of Wilson's motivational speeches, so he said nothing, and took another lurch forward. Feeling was returning in his legs, and despite his earlier fears about circulation and numbness, it was a distinctly unwelcome sensation.

"Do you need another Vicodin?" suggested Wilson, trying to keep the strain out of his voice as he grappled with House's weight.

"Not if you want me conscious," muttered House, ignoring the wistful expression that momentarily crossed his friend's face. House's company was less than restful under the best of circumstances. Perhaps to even out the cosmic balance, House had decided to react to the fact that he needed Wilson's help by matching every expression of concern with a verbal barb. It was, Wilson reflected whilst breathing hard through his nose, their own uniquely-tailored _ying_ and _yang -_ Wilson got to lose feeling in his arms by supporting his friend's weight, and House got to exercise his tongue after his period of enforced silence. They took another step, and then stood only a metre from the stone table from which they had embarked, panting. House was already shaking from the exertion, staring at the floor as sparks reeled across his vision.

"You forgot your tie," he said suddenly, nodding at the twisted scrap of silk on the floor.

"I'll cope without it," Wilson murmured. He'd sit through hours of House's scathing put-downs rather than see him silenced like that again. A strange thrill of anger ran through him again at the very thought. _How dare they_, he thought vaguely, remembering how he'd felt on the floor of his own little cell, staring up at Spike and --

Drusilla still lay facedown on the floor, now only a couple of feet from where they stood. The tie seemed to point towards her stagily like a clue at a crime scene, its thin tip was coiled inches from her ankle. He couldn't tell if she was breathing.

"Don't even think about it." He snapped his head up, and saw House's intense gaze looking at him suspiciously.

"What?"

"Taking her pulse. Checking her over. For once, fight the damsel in distress instinct and leave her. Trust me, she's not your type." Wilson nodded. It went against years of training, practise, and any natural human instinct in him, but if anyone deserved to be left on the floor, it was surely that woman. She was mentally unstable, he decided, unsure if his diagnosis made him feel less guilty. They could always send an ambulance down here to investigate, once they'd got out . . .

"What did she want?" They took another step, and House's leg nearly gave out entirely, folding them both up for a second before Wilson managed to drag them back upright. House swore viciously under his breath and the grip on Wilson's arm went from merely crushing to vise-like.

"What, kidnapping me and bringing me back to her S&M parlour? Take a guess," he said, refusing to lift his eyes from the floor. Wilson's eyebrows shot into his hairline.

"Seriously?!" He supported House through another laborious step, wincing in sympathy when his leg buckled. He wasn't sure how it was possible for House to project an eye roll with his face downcast, but somehow Wilson sensed it and stiffened when House said,

"No, not _seriously_ you ass, she's a lunatic. Who knows what she wanted?"

House hoped that sounded convincing; imagining Wilson's expression if he learned about the 'ritual', while tempting in itself, would inevitably be followed by a rush of concern and horror that would only slow them down, and probably make House want to hit something. With Wilson as the only available target, it was definitely best for everyone if he kept mouth shut, he decided.

"Although," - step, stumble, swear - "I think she definitely had plans for you. Probably would have tied you to the bed. _Ladykiller_," he grinned, flicking his eyes to the unconscious woman deliberately and watching Wilson flush uncomfortably at his double meaning. Only Wilson would agonise over the ethics of concussing a psychopath. "Oh, _don't._ If she was a guy, you'd be spitting on the body. She was trying to kill us. You just have a pathological need to - "

"Is this the time?" Wilson jerked forwards, fighting the momentary twinge of satisfaction as the action forced House to keep up and shut up. They were so close to the archway now - "You can psychoanalyse me once we're safe."

"Optimistic," grunted House. He had to sit down - except of course, that he couldn't. Black dots were dancing across the grey floor. He risked a glance at the arch, praying they were closer than he thought.

"We're going to be fine," said Wilson determinedly, raising his voice slightly as if he could will his hope into actualisation.

"No, we're not." House's voice was oddly flat. He had stopped moving; Wilson tugged his arm insistently.

"Just a little further, I promise, you'll be fine - "

"_Wilson_." Wilson paused, and looked up at House's face, his stare aimed straight ahead of them, oddly void of emotion. He followed his friend's gaze and went cold.

A large man, not Spike, dark-haired and oddly - expressionless - was standing directly under the archway they were heading for. All the air seemed to leave Wilson's lungs. The room contracted around him like a fist, clenching. "Oh."

House was speaking softly, his eyes not leaving the man, as if he was a rare species of wildlife they had stumbled across and didn't want to scare away. "He's _incredibly_ strong," he said conversationally, "and not very bright. We can't fight him."

"Why isn't he . . . What's wrong with him?" asked Wilson, matching the hushed tone instinctively.

House remembered Spike's speech earlier, and swallowed. "I don't know why, but - " he watched the blank gaze swivel between them, the face utterly _dead_ somehow, " - he's trained to only focus on one of us at a time. Not both."

"_What_?" hissed Wilson, not daring to wrench his eyes away, and wondering why the hell the guy hadn't made a move yet.

"Just - trust me. It's how he seems to work. One target at a time. Don't make any sudden movements," House continued in a whisper, gingerly unwrapping his arm from Wilson's shoulders and shifting his weight entirely onto his good leg, "and move away."

"_What? No_!" House, desperately wishing they were closer to a wall or the table, or any means of support that wasn't Wilson, extracted himself from his friend's support and stood tentatively under his own power. He had minutes, he thought grimly, until he was going to pass out. "House! _What are you doing_?!" Wilson moved towards his friend, and froze as the man followed his movement with a swift jerk of his head, and took a step forward.

"Like I said," came the whisper. "One at a time, no sudden movements. Only _one_ of us." He looked meaningfully at Wilson, and nodded towards the stairway behind them. Wilson blanched, and for an awful moment House thought he was going to protest and shout something, grab him by the arm and drag them both to certain doom. Instead, with a look of realisation, Wilson nodded and raised his arm, reaching slowly into the rucksack slung over his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the still, predatory figure before them. His hand closed on whatever he was looking for, and House heard a series of soft clicks, before he felt the familiar handle of his cane being pressed into his hand. It took his weight wonderfully and he felt a rush of relief. He fought a smile at Wilson's powers of organisation, apparently undaunted even under such trying circumstances. "Weapon. Nice," he breathed. "Thanks. Now, get going."

"Not weapon, _cane_," said Wilson, in his normal voice. The volume made House flinch in surprise.

"What?"

"Use it for walking. Out of here," said Wilson, and before House could stop him, he took a step away away from House and closer to the hulking stranger in front of them, eyes narrowed.

"Wilson!" House reached out to grab him, but he couldn't reach without toppling over, and his furious hiss was ignored. "Don't be a moron."

"I'm not," said Wilson, far too loudly and unconcernedly, stepping further away and folding his arms stubbornly. He watched as the hands of the man before him convulsed at his sides, and the blank face twitched. The man's eyes were flitting between them, unsure.

"Wilson . . ," House decided to appeal to reason and overthrow dignity for a moment: "Just get out of here! I can't even walk!"

"Then limp fast," snapped Wilson, turning to look at him.

"This isn't the time to be _noble_," snarled House, in a tone so menacing that it recaptured the thing's interest. "I'm being practical. _He is stronger than you._ He's stronger than both of us, but _one_ of us can _run away_! Hint -_ it's not me!_"

And then, for the first time that House could ever remember in the history of their relationship, Wilson turned and looked him as if he was deeply stupid. "Exactly."

Wilson turned away and steeled himself. "_Hey_!" he bellowed, rather unnecessarily, at the man standing only what were now a few feet away from him. He waved, and watched the man follow the movement like a snake.

"No - " But House wasn't fast enough to move like Wilson, wasn't strong enough to shout like Wilson, and was too stunned and (from his expression, pissed) to do anything before Wilson hurled House's Vicodin container straight at the man's head, darting to the right like a child in a playground. He knew that House could barely walk unaided, but he could buy him time; anything was better than leaving him to get picked off like a sick cub. _Anything, except me dying in the next five minutes?_ he wondered, as the man dodged the Vicodin, registered the threat and started after him across the room.

"Wilson, no!" shouted House, but he was too late; the thing's attention had been captured, and its target was locked. Wilson dodged around the table, staring breathlessly at the man - he suddenly looked a _lot _bigger - opposite him, torn as he shifted to the left, right, left, in a slow circling dance around the room. "Go!" he shouted, not even looking back at where House was propped up near the doorway.

"You _idiot_!" came House's furious reply. As the man stepped closer, Wilson found himself privately agreeing.

"Fine, I'm an idiot! Just GO!" And leading the figure away from his friend near the escapeway - Wilson ran.


	17. Chapter 17

_Ragged_ was how Wilson was feeling; his brain seemed to be ripping apart at the seams, his breathing tearing through his chest and his heart skittering unevenly against his ribs. He took another step around the table, his pace perfectly matched by the man prowling after him, and together they slowly traced the outline of a circle on the stone floor.

It was silent. It was like dancing with his reflection, or his shadow: a lifeless, muted mirror-man.

Flooded with adrenaline, thoughts un-spooling frantically, gaze fixed on the calm face of his opponent, Wilson found himself marvelling again that just hours ago, in some other lifetime, he had been sitting at his desk, ploughing through paperwork and sipping lukewarm coffee (how could he have ever _complained_ of being bored in the Eden of his warm, safe office?), and now . . . Now, he was teetering on the brink of cardiac arrest . . .

He edged sideways, poised for that sudden lurch that had to be coming from the other man, his every nerve jangling in anticipation --- any second now, _any _second, he'd jump at him ----

Wilson stumbled, and glanced down, certain even as he did so that this moment of distraction would be all the man needed to launch at him. He'd tripped over the unconscious body of the woman that he'd left on the ground. The woman who had hurt his friend; the woman whom he, a doctor, had left for dead on the floor; who had tied him up and locked him up and stroked his cheek with icy fingers, and he was suddenly assaulted by a wave of fury. _This_ wasn't how people acted; those shouldn't be his memories, _this _shouldn't be his present - his _life_ had been _hijacked_. Wilson came to a sudden stop. _This was ridiculous._

The man froze with his stillness, and Wilson licked his dry lips, outstretching an arm in a conciliatory gesture. This was just one man. Wilson could fight him if he had too; House had been weak, dazed, when he'd assessed the guy's ability. But _why _did he have to, when Wilson didn't even know what he wanted, or what he was thinking? _People talk_, he thought, and in the eerie silence the words seemed to echo loudly around his head. _They yell, or bully, or threaten, or plead - they negotiate_. Wilson was _good_ at talking to people; he was fairly certain that he wasn't any good at wrestling tall, angry men in freezing cellars. _Play to your strengths_, he thought, with the wild optimism that only terror can inspire.

"Look, this . . . this isn't necessary!" The man cocked his head, looking at Wilson appraisingly, and Wilson felt encouraged, stepping closer until he reached the table. Maybe House hadn't been able to reason with him, but Wilson couldn't think of anyone _less _reasonable than House --

"I don't want to have to fight you," he said, hoping the man couldn't hear the unspoken 'because I'd lose' that underscored his sentiments. "What's this about?" The man took a step closer, still apparently considering Wilson's words. "There's no reason why we should --" His voice trailed off as the man bent down behind the table, vanishing momentarily from his sight. " . . Hello?" _This is good,_ thought Wilson, despite his confusion; _this has to be good, we're not punching each other, he's not screaming at me, this is the closest thing to a civilized conversation I've had since I found House -_

When the man stood up, he was gripping the axe in his hand. The bottom fell out of Wilson's stomach.

"_Run_, you jackass!"

The blade swung upwards in a lazy arc, and the man walked casually forward, aiming the axe-head at the stunned doctor in front of him. Wilson fell backwards, dodging the blow that buried the axe in the table in front of him. _In_ the table. The surface of the hard, cold stone was cracked through with a jagged black line. Wilson gaped at it.

"Wilson, _run_!" House's shout bypassed Wilson's stuttering brain and went straight to his legs. He scrambled to his feet and tore away from the table as the man glanced down, unperturbed, at his handiwork, and started after his prey again. _I'm being chased by an axe-murderer._ The mute horror at what had just happened was replaced by an urge to laugh hysterically. He fought it; he couldn't afford to lose his wind now, when his heart was hammering and his breath coming in shallow bursts. Wilson could hear footsteps behind him; they weren't running like his, they marched with a kind of indomitable rhythm, and no matter how fast he ran, the distance between them didn't seemed to widen . . .

"Left!" Wilson swerved away from the wall he had been blindly hurtling towards, and found himself dashing up the stairway he had only recently descended. "Run and _think_!" bawled House from below him. "Don't let him corner you!"

The stairs were running out ahead of him; Wilson darted to the right and prayed the path kept going, and for once allowed himself to give into his urge to scream at House: "_Go away!_" The footsteps were too close behind him; not knowing how close they were almost made him want to stop, and get caught, and end the terrifying pursuit that could only end one way, . . .

But at least he had a _chance_. House had to get out of here, or all this was for nothing, because once Wilson fell, House was next, and House couldn't run, and so he had to. And it wasn't because he wanted to die, or wanted House to live more than he wanted to live himself . . . Rather, it was that the truth of their situation had sunk into his unconscious mind like a lead-weight: _to save himself was to sacrifice House._ Infinitely attractive as option one was, option two didn't even occur to him. There simply wasn't a choice.

Pulse pounding in his ears, his vision seeming to contract and blacken with every thump, Wilson completed the semi-circular path the metal balcony had laid out before him, and started down the stairway that was directly opposite the one he had come up, on the far side of the cavernous room. Steps were missing on this flight; the railing came loose in his hand as he grabbed at it, and he realised it had been wrenched loose from behind him, and then he wasn't so much running as progressing in a controlled plummet; the last three stairs snapped under his weight and he rolled to the ground, sprawling on his back, and was finally awarded a glimpse of his pursuer.

The man was expressionless, and calm, and marching after him relentlessly, ten stairs above him. The metal rod he had snapped from the stairwell fell carelessly from his hand: he wasn't even out of breath. With a moan of fury at the utter unfairness of it all, Wilson stumbled to his feet and ran forwards again, back around the table, spinning around, hoping to resume the edging dance once more. It had been nerve-wracking, but at least he'd been able to _breathe_ -

But the strange, silent man didn't even pause, and Wilson staggered backwards, facing his pursuer as he felt his back hit the wall. He was going to faint; he hadn't run like this since he was a kid, and he'd been practically hyperventilating before he'd started -

He risked a glance at the archway, and his heart seemed to miss a beat.

House had gone.

It took a second, and then Wilson remembered, that that was exactly what he'd wanted. He turned back, yelped at the outstretched hand swiping towards him, and shot off again in a haphazard loop around the chamber; going nowhere, getting nowhere, just staying away from the one following him. He'd never been any good at tag.

And now, he noticed with a strange kind of detachment after a second loop of the room, he was heading towards the archway himself; towards Angel and Buffy and all those other maniacs who suddenly looked much more attractive; who had promised to help him, promised safety -

A foot from the doorway, he found himself faltering. Within three seconds of rounding the corner, he might lead the man behind him straight to the one person he'd been trying to protect, who surely couldn't be far away -

His moment's hesitation was enough. A hand closed on his collar, he was lifted off his feet and thrown into the air, landing with a stupefying **_smack_** onto the stone floor. Stars twinkled at him.

But they winked out, one by one, blazing red on his retina, and Wilson tried to drag himself backwards, into a sitting position, as the luminous dots resolved themselves into the dark shadow of a man standing over him. Everything inside him congealed as he realised, with a kind of amazement, that he_ wasn't _going to get away. Despite everything, he'd never really believed - or maybe he just hadn't thought ahead, and considered the price that he would be paying . . .

Very slowly, the man raised his hand (_the hand that had split stone, torn metal_), and Wilson tried to curl into a ball, bringing his hands over his head, jamming his eyes closed, waiting helplessly for -

_CRACK!_

The sound, then the pain, then --

Was he already dead? The skull-splitting agony never came; his breath was still coming in frantic gulps . . . Wilson opened his eyes, braced for the iron-hard blow of a fist . . .

House stood over him, cane raised like a club, like he'd stood all those years ago after a swing when they'd played golf together, and in front of him the man who'd been chasing him was standing -- was _swaying_ -

He fell forwards as if in slow motion, and Wilson rolled out of the way, as that massive, impassive body hit the ground with a shuddering _thud_. House lowered the cane, and grinned. "You're right. Turns out teamwork _can _be fun."

Wilson didn't say anything. Partly because his brain was trying to focus the fact that his face was still in one piece, but mainly because he was gasping too hard to talk.

"I'd help you up, but then I'd probably fall over, and then we'd both be on our asses." He shook his arm and winced. "I think that would have taken a normal guy's head off." Wilson still didn't say anything; still stunned. House looked down at him as if he was a particularly troublesome x-ray. "You planning on sitting there long?"

"What -- How did you -- Where -- ?"

"All good questions," agreed House, looking slightly flushed with adrenaline and significantly better than he'd looked ten minutes earlier. "I've been there the whole time." He nodded to the shadows under the archway, where the darkness was at its most impenetrable. "I figured you'd have to come this way eventually, if you weren't actually planning on dying." He managed to make it sound like an accusation, and scowled. "Only _you _could give what should have been self-evident Darwinism a, . . a _Disney _twist! That was the stupidest thing . . . " He trailed off as he stared down at Wilson, dishevelled and breathless and wide-eyed at his feet.

" . . Are you ok?"

Wilson made a choked sort of noise in response, and crawled to his feet, still looking dazed. He stared at the now-quiet room and its two slumped bodies, and the axe protruding defiantly from the ancient table, and finally at House, his eyes piercing through the darkness, looking at him with a strange expression of worry and anger and apology. "He's not waking up," said House, catching his glance towards the felled man. "At least, not for a while. That whole racing-for-your-life part is over."

"Oh. Well," said Wilson. "We must do this again some time." He turned back towards the archway, feeling his heart gradually slow in his chest, marvelling that he hadn't stressed it into exploding inside him. Beside him, House took his arm. It wasn't until several seconds later that Wilson realised it was probably because he still needed someone to lean on.

"Let's get the hell out of here," he muttered, and without a backwards glance, they stepped into the absolute darkness of the corridor before them. Wilson took his penlight from his pocket, and shone the tiny beam so that it flashed like a firefly in a cave.

The floor was rocky, and here and there his torch fell upon small mounds of ash that inexplicably littered the passageway. Beside him he heard the pop of the Vicodin container, and tightened his supporting grip on House's arm. For once, House didn't snap anything at him, but squeezed back with a sort of firmness that felt like an assertion to Wilson - he was probably still light-headed from lack of oxygen, he thought, - because it _almost _felt like a silent gesture of thanks.

Noises, distilled by the distance into a low, murmuring buzz, floated down the corridor. In the glow of the penlight they looked at each other, and moved forwards cautiously. The atmosphere felt close, and airless; it carried what felt like a centuries old chill that you found in underground caverns, and the walls under Wilson's fingertips seemed to be getting rougher and rockier as they moved away from what must have been the central warehouse. They were going underground, and Wilson wondered if they should turn back; but this was where the others must have gone . . .

House stumbled over something and cursed; they shone the beam down, and both jumped backwards in shock.

Spike's unconscious face, glowing bone-white below them, was laid out against the ground, a long streak of dark blood marking its pathway down from his temple. He didn't stir at their mutual cries of shock, or from the thrum of voices emanating from the end of the corridor.

"Concussed," murmured Wilson.

"That's one less thing to worry about," said House in satisfaction. He suddenly looked much more bright. He gave the unconscious man a brutal jab with his cane as they stepped around him, and snarled down at the white face venomously. "I'll give him _quack_."

The blackness was like a solid mass around them; the little white line of the torch barely pierced the gloom. Wilson spoke more from the urge to fill up the darkness than anything else;

"He kidnapped me, he captured you, and you're pissed because he insulted your medical prowess?"

"The man couldn't tell a colon from a kidney, and then he - "

A blaze of light erupted from nowhere; a flaming lantern blinded the two of them for a second, and before they could see, they felt hands grasping them, pulling them forwards, and they both stumbled.

"Hey --!"

"_Cripple_ here -- "

The hands didn't slacken, and Wilson made out the pale blur of Angel's face in front of him, and Giles urging them forwards, looking worried.

"Hurry, this way!"

House wrenched himself away, massaging his thigh and glowering at them. "This is my maximum speed," he snapped, apparently not relieved that help had presented itself, given its manner of presentation. "Hands off." Angel didn't say a word; he simply seized House by the jacket and practically dragged him forwards. Wilson's protest was cut off as he felt Giles doing the same to him, too dizzy to immediately push him away.

"_Now_! We need your help!" hissed Giles frantically. "It's Buffy - she needs a doctor -"

"What's wrong -?" started House, but Angel shook his head and forced them forwards, towards the rising wail of voices that Wilson now realised sounded panicked and lost.

"You better be good," Angel said, and the look in his eye made Wilson's insides contract for the second time that hour. "You have to help her . . . If you can't save her, -- "

"Yeah, then she'll be dead," said House somewhat unsympathetically - largely due to the fact that he and his bad leg were being hauled unceremoniously over the uneven ground. "We know the drill."

"We'll do everything we can," said Wilson reassuringly, stumbling to keep up. "We know what we're doing -- "

"Not with this," said Angel darkly. "Even I don't know what . . ." He looked anguished.

"She'll be fine," said Giles tightly, white-faced and resolute. "She has to be. We're not leaving without Buffy."

Wilson was sure House would never abandon the girl either, but the man had to find some way to vent the agony coursing through his leg, and watched with a sinking feeling as House opened his mouth to retort. But before he could say anything, before Wilson could interrupt him from snapping out anything _too _appalling that would result in their being abandoned in the darkness, Giles spoke.

"You'd better know what you're doing, and you'd better try your damned hardest as well, Doctor House, because let me tell you -- ," his voice rang through the half-light, and the contrast of the frightened noises from ahead of them seemed to lend his words an extra weight -- "Let me tell you, that without the Slayer, . . . _none_ of us are getting out of here alive."


End file.
